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COMMON-PLACES     REFRESHED. 


By    LEIGH     HUNT. 


IN    T\VO    VOLUMES. 


VOL.   I. 


LOVK    ADDS    A    PRECIOUS    SEEING    TO    THE    EYE.  — SAaAcspcare. 


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.       •    BOSTON:    ' 

ROBERTS   BROTHERS,    PUBLISHERS, 

143,   Washington    Street. 

1S65. 


boston: 

STEREOTYI'F.D   AND  PRINTED  BT  JOHN   WILSON  AND   SOS. 
No.  5,  Water  Street. 


THIBD  EDITION. 

•  »r«  •  »  ••  **••* 

•     f  .         •    •  •  ■ 

' •        *. 


•      •      •       • 


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'"'■] 


V.   \ 
PREFACE. 


g-THE  following  Essays  have  been  collecSted,  for  tlie  first 

time,  fi'om  such  of  the  author's  periodical  writings  as 

^  it  was  thought  might  furnish  another  publication  simi- 

^  lar  to  the  "  Indicator,"     Most  of  them  have  been  taken 

from  the  "  London  Journal,"  and  the  remainder  from 

the  "  Liberal,"  the  "  Monthly  Repository,"   the   "  Tat- 

ler,"  and  the  "  Round  Table."     The  title,  of  course,  is 

^  to  be  understood  in  its  primitive  and  most  simple  sense, 

"—  and  not  in  its  portentous  one,  as  connefted  with  fore- 

"^  sight  and   prophecy ;    nor  would  the   author  profess, 

intelle6lually,  to  see  "  farther  into  a  millstone "  than 

=>  his  betters.     His  motto,   which   thoroughly  explains, 

will  also,  he  trusts,  vindicate,  all  which  he  aspires  to 

sliow  ;  which  is,  that  the  more  we  look  at  any  thing  in 

.  this  beautiful  and  abiuidant  world  with  a  desire  to  be 

ty  pleased  with  it,  the  moi'e  we  shall  be  rewarded  by  the 

loving   Spirit   of  the   universe    with   discoveries   that 

await  only  the  desire. 

It  will  ever  be  one  of  the  most  delightful  recollec- 
tions of  the  author's  life,  that  the  periodical  work,  from 
which  the  colle(5lion  has  been  chiefly  made,  was  en- 
couraged b}-  all  parties  in  the  spirit  in  which  it  was  set 

298868  '"" 


IV  PREFACE. 

up.  Nor,  at  the  hazard  of  some  imputation  on  his 
modesty  (which  he  must  be  allowed  not  very  terribly 
to  care  for,  where  so  much  love  is  going  forward) ,  can 
he  help  repeating  what  he  wrote  on  this  point,  when 
his  heart  was  first  touched  by  it :  — 

"  As  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  which  is  not  super- 
natural in  one  sense  ;  as  the  very  world  of  fashion 
itself  rolls  round  with  the  stars,  and  is  a  part  of  the 
mystery  and  the  variety  of  the  shows  of  the  universe : 
so  nothing,  in  a  contemptuous  sense,  is  small,  or  un- 
worthy of  a  grave  and  calm  hope,  which  tends  to 
popularize  Christian  refinement,  and  to  mix  it  up  with 
every  species  of  social  intercourse  as  a  good  realized, 
and  not  merely  as  an  abstraction  preached.  What ! 
have  not  Philosophy  and  Christianity  long  since  met 
in  the  embrace  of  such  loving  discoveries?  and  do 
not  the  least  and  most  trivial  things,  provided  they 
have  an  earnest  and  cheerful  good-will,  partake  of 
some  right  of  greatness,  and  the  privilege  to  be  hon- 
ored, —  if  not  with  admiration  of  their  wisdom,  yet 
with  acknowledgment  of  the  joy  which  is  the  end  of 
wisdom,  and  which  it  is  the  privilege  of  a  loving  sin- 
cerity to  reach  by  a  short  road?  Hence  we  have  had 
two  obje(Stions,  and  two  hundred  encouragements ; 
and  excellent  writers  of  all  sorts,  and  of  all  other  shades 
of  belief,  have  hastened  to  say  to  us,  'Preach  that,* 
and  prosper.'  Have  not  the  '  Times '  and  the  '  Ex- 
aminer '  and  the  '  Atlas '  and  the  '  Albion '  and  the 
'  True  Sun,'  and  twenty  other  newspapers,  hailed  us 
for  the  very  sunniness  of  our  religion  ?  Does  not  that 
old  and  judicious  Whig,  the  '  Scotsman,'  waive  his 
deliberate  manner  in  our  favor,  and  '  coi'dially '  wish 


PREFACE.  V 

US  success  for  it?  Does  not  the  Radical  'Glasgow 
Argus,'  in  an  eloquent  article,  'fresh  and  glowing' 
as  his  good-will,  expressly  recommend  us  for  its  per- 
vading all  we  write  upon,  tears  included?  And  the 
rich-writing  Tory,  Christopher  North,  instead  of  obje6t- 
ing  to  the  entireness  of  our  sunshine,  and  requiring  a 
cloud  in  it,  does  he  not  welcome  it,  ay,  every  week, 
as  it  strikes  on  his  breakfast-cloth,  and  speak  of  it,  in  a 
burst  of  bright-heartedness,  as  '  dazzling  the  snow '  ?  " 
And  so,  with  thanks  and  blessings  upon  the  warm- 
hearted of  all  parties,  who  love  their  fellow-creatures 
quite  as  much  as  we  do,  perhaps  better,  and  who  may 
think,  for  that  very  reason,  that  the  edge  of  their  con- 
test with  one  another  is  still  not  to  be  so  much  softened 
as  we  suppose,  here  is  another  bit  of  a  corner,  at  all 
events,  where,  as  in  the  recesses  of  their  own  minds, 
all  green  and  hopeful  thoughts  for  the  good  and  enter- 
tainment of  men  may  lovingly  meet. 

[Given  at  our  suburban  abode,  with  a  fire  on  one 
side  of  us,  and  a  vine  at  the  window  on  the  other, 
this  nineteenth  day  of  October,  one  thousand  eight 
hundred  and  fort}',  and  in  the  very  green  and 
invincible  year  of  our  life,  the  fifty-sixth.] 

L.  H. 


CONTENTS. 


PAQB 

PLEASURE       9 

ON   A   PEiiBLE    ....             19 

SPRING 28 

COLOR 34 

WINDOWS 38 

WINDOWS,    CONSIDERED    FROM    INSIDE 48 

A   FLOWER   FOR    YOUR   WINDOW 59 

A   WORD    ON   EARLY   RISING 67 

BREAKFAST    IN    SUMMER 73 

BREAKFAST  {continued) 86 

BREAKFAST  (concluded) 97 

ANACREON 108 

THE  WRONG    SIDES    OF  SCHOLARSHIP  AND    NO    SCHOLARSHIP  .  124 

CRICKET          130 

A    DUSTY    DAY 133 

BRICKLAYERS,  AND    AN    OLD    BOOK 145 

A    RAINY    DAY 154 

THE    EAST   WIND 163 

STRAWBERRIES 168 

THE    WAITER 1"5 

"THE    butcher" 1^0 

A    PINCH    OF    SNUFF 187 

[Vii] 


Vlll  CONTENTS. 

PASS 

A  PINCH  OF  SNUFF  [concluded) 193 

WORDSWORTH    AND    MILTON 204 

SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER. NO.  1 211 

SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER. NO.  II 220 

SPECIMENS   OP    CHAUCER.  —  NO.  Ill 225 

SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER. NO.  IV 232 

SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER. NO,  V 243 

SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER. NO.  VI 248 

PETER    WILKINS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN        ......  256 

ENGLISH   AND    FRENCH    FEMALES 276 

ENGLISH   MALE    COSTUME 288 

ENGLISH   WOMEN    VINDICATED 296 

SUNDAY    IN    LONDON. NO.  1 305 

SUNDAY    IN    LONDON. NO.  11 314 

SUNDAY    IN    THE    SUBURBS 319 

A   HUMAN   BEING   AND   A   CROWD 326 


THE     SEER; 


COMMON-PLACES     REFRESHED. 


PLEASURE. 

Poo7'  Rich  Men  and  Rich  Poor  Men.  —  A   Word  or^ 
two  on  the  Periodical  Writings  of  the  Author. 


'i^^i^i^^h  LEASURE  is  the  business  of  this  book :  we 
own  it.     We  love  to  begin  it  with  tlie  word : 


^0W 


it  is  like  commencing  the  day  (as  we  are 
now  commencing  it)  with  sunshine  in  the  room.  Plea- 
sure for  all  who  can  receive  pleasure  ;  consolation  and 
encouragement  for  the  rest,  —  this  is  our  device.  But 
then  it  is  pleasure  like  that  implied  by  our  simile, — 
innocent,  kindly ;  we  dare  to  add,  instru6tive  and  ele- 
vating. Nor  shall  the  gravest  aspe6ts  of  it  be  wanting. 
As  the  sunshine  floods  the  sky  and  the  ocean,  and  yet 
nurses  the  baby  buds  of  the  roses  on  the  wall ;  so  we 
would  fain  open  the  largest  and  the  very  least  sources 
of  pleasure,  —  the  noblest  that  expands  above  us  into 
the  heavens,  and  the  most  familiar  that  catches  our 
glance  in  the  homestead.  We  would  break  open  the 
surfaces  of  habit  and  indifference,  of  objects  that  are 
supposed  to  contain  nothing  but  so  much  brute  matter 


lO  THE    SEER. 

or  commonplace  utility,  and  show  what  treasures  they 
conceal.  Man  has  not  yet  learned  to  enjoy  the  world 
he  lives  in ;  no,  not  the  hundred-thousand-millionth 
part  of  it :  and  we  would  fain  help  him  to  render  it 
produ6live  of  still  greater  joy,  and  to  delight  or  comfort 
himself  in  his  task  as  he  proceeds.  We  would  make 
adversity  hopeful,  prosperity  sympathetic  ;  all  kinder, 
richer,  and  happier.  And  we  have  some  right  to  assist 
in  the  endeavor :  for  there  is  scarcely  a  single  joy  or 
sorrow,  within  the  experience  of  our  fellow-creatures, 
which  we  have  not  tasted  ;  and  the  belief  in  the  good 
and  beautiful  has  never  forsaken  us.  It  has  been  medi- 
cine to  us  in  sickness,  riches  in  poverty,  and  the  best 
part  of  all  that  ever  delighted  us  in  health  and  suc- 
cess. 

There  is  not  a  man  living,  perhaps,  in  the  present 
state  of  society,  —  certainly  not  among  those  who  have 
a  surfeit  of  goods,  any  more  than  those  who  want  a  suf- 
ficiency,—  that  has  not  some  pain  which  he  would 
diminish,  and  some  pleasure,  or  capability  of  it,  that 
he  would  increase.  We  would  say  to  him.  Let  him 
be  sure  he  can  diminish  that  pain  and  increase  that 
pleasure.  He  will  find  out  the  secret  by  knowing 
more,  and  by  knowing  that  there  is  more  to  love. 
"Pleasures  lie  about  our  feet."  We  would  extradl 
some  for  the  unthinking  rich  man  out  of  his  very 
carpet  (though  he  thinks  he  has  already  got  as  much 
as  it  can  yield)  ;  and  for  the  unthinking  or  unhoping 
poor  one,  out  of  his  bare  fioor. 

"  Can  you  put  a  loaf  on  my  table?"  the  poor  man 
may  ask.  No  :  but  we  can  show  him  how  to  get  it  in 
the  best  manner,  and  comfort  himself  while  he  is  get- 


PLEASURE.  I  I 

ting  it.  If  he  can  get  it  not  at  all,  we  do  not  profess 
to  have  even  the  right  of  being  listened  to  by  him. 
We  can  only  do  what  we  can,  as  his  fellow-crea- 
tures and  by  other  means,  towards  hastening  the  ter- 
mination of  so  frightful  an  exception  to  the  common 
lot. 

"  Can  you  rid  me  of  my  gout,  or  my  disrelish  of  all 
things  ? "  the  rich  man  may  ask.  No  :  nor  perhaps 
even  diminish  it,  unless  you  are  a  very  daring  or  a 
very  sensible  man  ;  and  if  you  are  very  rich  indeed, 
and  old,  neither  of  these  predicaments  is  very  likely. 
Yet  we  would  try.  We  are  inextinguishable  friends 
of  endeavor. 

If  you  had  the  gout,  however,  and  were  Lord  Hol- 
lafid,  you  would  smile,  and  say,  "  Talk  on."  You 
would  suspend  the  book,  or  the  pen,  or  the  kindly 
thought  you  were  engaged  in,  and  indulgently  wait 
to  see  what  recipes  or  amusing  fancies  we  could  add  to 
your  stock. 

Nay,  if  you  were  a  kind  of  stai^ving  Di*.  Johnson, 
who  wrote  a  letter  one  day  to  the  editor  of  the  maga- 
zine to  which  he  contributed,  signing  himself,  "  Din- 
nerless,"  *  you  would  listen  to  us  even  without  a  loaf 
on  your  table,  and  see  how  far  we  could  bear  out  the 
reputation  of  the  Lydians,  who  are  said  to  have  in- 
vented play  as  a  resource  against  himger.  But  Dr. 
Johnson  knew  he  had  his  remedy  in  his  wits.  The 
wants  of  the  poor  in  knowledge  are  not  so  easily  post- 

*  Impransus.  It  miglit  mean  simply,  tliat  he  had  not  dined;  hi't 
there  is  too  much  reason  to  believe  othenvise.  And  yet  how  much 
good  and  entertainment  did  not  the  very  necessities  of  such  a  man  help 
to  produce  us ! 


12  THE    SEER. 

poned.  With  deep  reverence  and  sympathy  would 
we  be  vuiderstood  as  speaking  of  them.  A  smile, 
however  closely  it  may  border  upon  a  grave  thought, 
is  not  to  be  held  a  levity  in  us,  any  more  than  sun  be- 
twixt rain.  One  and  the  same  s^anpathy  with  all 
things  fetches  it  out. 

But  to  all  but  the  famished  we  should  say  with  the 
noble  text,  "  Man  does  not  live  by  bread  alone."  "  A 
man,"  says  Bacon,  in  words  not  unworthy  to  go  by  the 
side  of  the  others,  "  is  but  what  he  knoweth."  "  I 
think,"  said  Descartes  ;  "  therefore  I  am."  A  man  has 
no  proof  of  his  existence  but  in  his  consciousness  of  it, 
and  the  return  of  that  consciousness  after  sleep.  He 
is  therefore,  in  amount  of  existence,  only  so  much  as 
his  consciousness,  his  thoughts,  and  his  feelings 
amount  to.  The  more  he  knows,  the  more  he  ex- 
ists ;  and  the  pleasanter  his  knowledge,  the  happier 
his  existence.  One  man,  in  this  sense  of  things,  and 
it  is  a  sense  proved  beyond  a  doubt  (except  with  those 
merry  philosophers  of  antiquity  who  doubted  their 
very  consciousness,  nay,  doubted  doubt  itself),  is  infi- 
nitely little  compared  with  another  man.  If  we  could 
see  his  mind,  we  should  see  a  pygmy ;  and  it  would  be 
stuck  perhaps  into  a  pint  of  beer,  or  a  scent-bottle,  or 
a  bottle  of  wine  ;  as  the  monkey  stuck  Gulliver  into 
the  marrow-bone.  Another  man's  inind  would  show 
larger,  another  larger  still ;  till  at  length  we  should 
see  minds  of  all  shapes  and  sizes,  from  a  microscopic 
one  up  to  that  of  a  giant  or  a  demigod,  or  a  spirit  that 
filled  the  visible  world.  Milton's  would  be  like  that 
of  his  own  archangel.  "  His  stature  reached  the 
sky."     Shakspeare's  would  stretch  from  the  midst  of 


PLEASURE. 


13 


US  into  the  regions  of  "  airy  nothing,"  and  bring  us 
new  creatures  of  his  own  making.  Bacon's  would 
be  lost  into  the  next  ages.  Many  a  "great  man's" 
would  become  invisible,  and  many  a  little  one  suddenly 
astonish  us  with  the  overshadowing  of  its  great- 
ness. 

Men  sometimes,  by  the  magic  of  their  knowledge, 
partake  of  a  great  many  things  which  they  do  not 
possess  :  others  possess  much  which  is  lost  upon  them. 
It  is  recoi-ded  of  an  exquisite^  in  one  of  the  admirable 
exhibitions  of  Mr.  Mathews,  that  being  told,  with  a 
grave  face,  of  a  mine  of  silver  which  had  been  dis- 
covered in  one  of  the  London  suburbs,  he  exclaimed,  in 
his  jargon,  "  A  mine  of  5/7-'y«2^  /  Good  Gaud!  You 
don't  tell  me  so!  A  rcnuQ  oi  sil-vazi !  Good  Gaud  I 
I've  often  seen  the  little  boys  playing  about ;  but  I  had 
no  idea  that  there  was  a  mine  of  sll-vau.'" 

This  gentleman,  whom  we  are  to  understand  as  re- 
peating these  words  out  of  pure  ignorance  and  absur- 
dity, and  not  from  any  power  to  receive  information, 
would  be  in  possession,  while  he  was  expressing  his 
astonishment  at  a  thing  unheard  of  and  ridiculous,  of 
a  hundred  real  things  round  about  him,  of  which  he 
knew  nothing.  Shakspeare  speaks  of  a  man  who  was 
"  incapable  of  his  own  distress  ;  "  that  is  to  say,  who  had 
not  the  feclinsrs  of  other  men,  and  was  insensible  to 
what  would  have  distressed  everybody  else.  This  dan- 
dy would  be  incapable  of  his  own  wealth,  of  his  own 
furniture,  of  his  own  health,  friends,  books,  gardens ; 
nay,  of  his  very  hat  and  coat,  except  inasmuch  as  they 
contributed  to  give  him  one  single  idea  ;  to  wit,  that  of 
his  dandyism.    From  all  those  stores,  small  and  great, 


14  THE    SEER. 

nothing  but  that  solitary  and  sorry  impression  would 
he  receive. 

Of  all  which  his  wealth  could  procure  him,  in  the 
shape  of  a  real  enjoyment  of  poetry,  painting,  music, 
sculpture,  and  the  million  of  ideas  which  they  might 
produce,  he  would  know  nothing. 

Of  all  the  countries  that  produced  his  furniture,  all 
the  ti^ades  that  helped  to  make  it,  all  the  arts  that  went 
to  adorn  it,  all  the  materials  of  which  it  was  com- 
posed, and  the  innumerable  images  of  men,  lands, 
facilities,  substances,  elements,  and  interesting  pheno- 
mena of  all  sorts  to  which  the  knowledge  might 
give  rise,  he  would  know  nothing. 

Of  his  books  he  would  know  nothing,  except  that 
they  were  bound,  and  that  they  caust  a  great  deal. 

Of  his  gardens  he  would  know  nothing,  except  that 
they  were  "  tedious,"  and  that  he  occasionally  had  a 
pink  out  of  them  to  put  in  his  button-hole,  provided 
it  was  tlie  fashion.  Otherwise  pinks  are  "vulgar." 
Nature's  and  God's  fashion  is  nothing. 

Of  his  hat  and  his  coat  it  might  be  thovight  he  must 
know  something :  but  he  would  not,  except  as  far  as 
we  have  stated  ;  unless,  indeed,  his  faculties  might  pos- 
sibly attain  to  the  knowledge  of  a  "  fit"  or  a  "  set,"  and 
then  he  would  not  know  it  with  a  grace.  The  know- 
ledge of  a  good  thing,  even  in  the  least  matters,  is  not 
for  a  person  so  poorly  educated,  —  so  worse  than  left 
to  grow  up  in  an  ignorance  unsophisticate.  Of  the 
creatures  that  furnished  the  materials  of  his  hat  and 
coat  —  the  curious  handicraft  beaver,  the  spinster  silk- 
worm, the  sheep  in  the  meadows  (except  as  mutton)  — 
nothing  would  he  know  or  care,  or  receive  tlie  least 


PLEASURE.  15 

pleasurable  thought  from.  In  the  mind  that  consti- 
tutes his  man,  in  the  amount  of  his  existence,  terri- 
bly vacant  are  the  regions,  —  bald  places  in  the  map, 
—  deserts  without  even  the  excitement  of  a  storm. 
Nothing  lives  there  but  himself,  —  a  suit  of  clothes  in  a 
solitude,  —  emptiness  in  emptiness. 

Contrast  a  being  of  this  fashion  (after  all  allowance 
for  caricature)  with  one  who  has  none  of  his  deformi- 
ties, but  with  a  stock  of  ideas  such  as  the  other  wants. 
Suppose  him  poor,  even  struggling,  but  not  unhappy ; 
or  if  not  without  unhappiness,  yet  not  without  relief, 
and  unacquainted  with  the  desperation  of  the  other's 
ennui.  Such  a  man,  when  he  wants  recreation  for  his 
thoughts,  can  make  them  flow  from  all  the  objects,  or 
the  ideas  of  those  obje(5ts,  which  furnish  nothing  to  the 
other.  The  commonest  goods  and  chattels  are  preg- 
nant to  him  as  fairy  tales,  or  things  in  a  pantomime. 
His  hat,  like  Fortunatus's  wishing-cap,  carries  him 
into  the  American  solitudes  among  the  beavers,  where 
he  sits  in  thought,  looking  at  them  during  their  work, 
and  hearing  the  majestic  whispers  in  the  trees,  or  the 
falls  of  the  old  trunks  that  are  repeatedly  breaking 
the  silence  in  those  wildernesses.  His  coat  shall  carry 
him,  in  ten  minutes,  through  all  the  scenes  of  pastoral  life 
and  mechanical,  —  the  quiet  fields,  the  sheejD-shearing, 
the  feasting,  the  love-making,  the  downs  of  Dorsetshire, 
and  the  sti^eets  of  Birmingham,  where,  if  he  meet  with 
pain  in  his  sympathy,  he  also,  in  his  knowledge,  finds 
reason  for  hope  and  encouragement,  and  for  giving  his 
manly  assistance  to  the  common  good.  The  very 
toothpick  of  the  dandy,  should  this  man,  or  any  man 
like  him,  meet  with  it,  poor  or  rich,  shall  suggest  to 


1 6  THE    SEER. 

him,  if  he  pleases,  a  hundred  agreeable  thoughts  of 
foreign  lands,  and  elegance  and  amusement,  —  of  toi"- 
toises,  and  books  of  travels,  and  the  comb  in  his 
mistress's  hair,  and  the  elephants  that  carry  sultans, 
and  the  real  silvei'-mines  of  Potosi,  with  all  the  won- 
ders of  South-American  history,  and  the  starry  cross  in 
its  sky :  so  that  the  smallest  key  shall  pick  the  lock  of 
the  greatest  treasui^es ;  and  that  which  in  the  hands 
of  the  possessor  was  only  a  poor  instrument  of  affe6la- 
tion,  and  the  very  emblem  of  indifference  and  stupidity, 
shall  open  to  the  knowing  man  a  universe. 

We  must  not  pursue  the  subje6l  further  at  present, 
or  trust  our  eyes  at  the  smallest  objedls  around  us, 
which,  from  long  and  loving  contemplation,  have  en- 
abled us  to  report  their  riches.  We  have  been  at  this 
work  now,  off'  and  on,  man  and  boy  (for  we  began 
rssay-writing  while  in  our  teens),  for  up\vards  of  thirty 
years :  and  excepting  that  we  would  fain  have  done 
far  more,  and  that  experience  and  suffering  have  long 
restored  to  us  the  natural  kindliness  of  boyhood,  and 
put  an  end  to  a  belief  in  the  right  or  utility  of  severer 
views  of  any  thing  or  person,  we  feel  the  same  as  we 
have  done  throughout ;  and  we  have  the  same  hope, 
the  same  love,  the  same  faith  in  the  beauty  and  good- 
ness of  Nature  and  all  her  prospers,  in  space  and  In 
time  ;  we  could  almost  add,  if  a  sprinkle  of  white  hairs 
in  our  black  would  allow  us,  the  same  yovith  :  for,  what- 
ever maybe  thought  of  a  consciousness  to  that  effect,  the 
feeling  is  so  real,  and  ti'oublc  of  no  ordinary  kind  has 
so  remarkably  spared  the  elasticity  of  our  spirits,  that 
we  are  often  startled  to  think  how  old  we  have  become, 
compared  with  the  little  of  age  that  is  in  our  disposi- 


PLEASURE.  1 7 

tion ;  and  we  mention  this  to  bespeak  the  reader's 
faith  in  what  we  shall  write  hereafter,  if  he  is  not  ac- 
quainted with  us  already.  If  he  is,  he  will  no  more 
doubt  us  than  the  children  do  at  our  fireside.  We 
have  had  so  much  sorrow,  and  yet  are  capable  of  so 
much  joy,  and  receive  pleasure  from  so  many  familiar 
objects,  that  we  sometimes  think  we  should  have  had 
an  unfair  portion  of  happiness,  if  our  life  had  not  been 
one  of  more  than  ordinary  trial. 

The  reader  will  not  be  troubled  in  future  with  per- 
sonal intimations  of  this  kind  ;  but  in  commencing  a 
new  work  of  the  present  nature,  and  having  been  per- 
suaded to  put  our  name  at  the  top  of  it  (for  which  we 
beg  his  kindest  constructions,  as  a  point  conceded  by  a 
sense  of  what  was  best  for  others) ,  it  will  be  thought, 
we  trust,  not  unfitting  in  us  to  have  alluded  to  them. 
We  believe  we  may  call  ourselves  the  father  of  the 
present  penny  and  three-halfpenny  literature,  —  desig- 
nations once  distressing  to  "  ears  polite,"  but  now  no 
longer  so,  since  they  are  producing  so  many  valuable 
results,  fortunes  included.  The  first  number  of  tiie 
new  popular  review,  the  "  Printing  Machine,"  —  in  an 
article  for  the  kindness  and  cordiality  of  which  we  take 
this  our  best  opportunity  of  expressing  our  gratitude, 
and  can  only  wish  we  could  turn  these  sentences  into 
so  many  grips  of  the  hand  to  show  our  sense  of  it,  — 
did  us  the  honor  of  noticing  the  "  Indicator  "  as  the  first 
successful  attempt  (in  one  respe6l)  to  revive  something 
like  the  periodical  literature  of  former  days.  We  fol- 
lowed this  with  the  "  Companion,"  lately  republished  in 
connexion  with  the  "  Indicator  ;  "  and  a  few  years  ago, 
in  a  fit  of  anxiety  at  not  being  able  to  meet  some  obli- 

VOL.    I.  2 


l8  THE    SEER. 

gations,  and  fearing  we  were  going  to  be  cut  off  from 
life  itself  without  leaving  answers  to  still  graver  wants, 
we  set  up  a  half-reviewing,  half-theatrical  periodical, 
under  the  name  of  the  "Tatler"  (a  liberty  taken  by 
love),  in  the  hope  of  being  able  to  realize  some  sud- 
den as  well  as  lasting  profits !  So  little,  with  all  our 
zeal  for  the  public  welfare,  had  we  found  out  what 
was  so  well  discerned  by  Mr.  Knight  and  others, 
when  tliey  responded  to  the  intelledtual  wants  of  the 
many.  However,  we  pleased  some  readers,  whom  it 
is  a  kind  of  prosperity  even  to  rank  as  such ;  we  con- 
ciliated the  good-will  of  others,  by  showing  that  an 
ardent  politician  might  still  be  a  man  of  no  ill-temper, 
nor  without  good-will  to  all ;  and  now,  once  inore 
setting  up  a  periodical  work,  entirely  without  politics, 
but  better  calculated,  we  trust,  than  our  former  ones, 
to  meet  the  wishes  of  many  as  well  as  few,  we  are,  in 
hearty  good  earnest,  the  public's  very  sincere  and  cor- 
dial friend  and  servant. 


19 


ON    A    PEBBLE. 


'OOKING  about  us  during  a  walk  to  see  what 
subjecSl  we  could  write  upon  in  this  our  second 
number,  that  should  be  familiar  to  everybody, 
and  aflbrd  as  striking  a  specimen  as  we  could  give 
of  the  entertainment  to  be  found  in  the  commonest 
obje(5ls,  oiu-  eyes  lighted  upon  a  stone.  It  was  a  com- 
mon pebble,  a  flint ;  such  as  a  little  boy  kicks  before 
him  as  he  goes,  by  way  of  making  haste  witli  a  mes- 
sage, and  saving  his  new  shoes. 

"  A  stone  !  "  cries  a  reader,  "  a  flint !  —  the  very  sym- 
bol of  a  miser !     What  can  be  got  out  of  that?" 

The  question  is  well  put ;  but  a  little  reflecflion  on 
the  part  of  our  interrogator  would  soon  rescue  tlie  poor 
stone  from  tlie  cojiiparison.  Strike  him  at  any  rato, 
and  you  will  get  something  out  of  him  ;  warm  liis 
heart,  and  out  come  the  genial  sparks  that  shall  ghuUk'n 
your  hearth,  and  put  hot  dishes  on  your  table.  Tliis 
is  not  miser's  work.  A  French  poet  lias  described  tlie 
l^rocess,  well  known  to  the  maid-servant  (till  lucifers 
came  up),  when  she  stooped,  with  flashing  face,  over 
the  tinder-box  on  a  cold  morning,  and  rejoiced  to  see 


20  TIIH    SEER. 

the  first  laugh  of  the  fire.     A  sexton,  in  the  poem  we 
alhide  to,  is  striking  a  Hght  in  a  church :  — 

"  Boirude,  qui  voit  que  le  p6ril  approche, 
Les  an6tc',  et  tiraut  un  fusil  de  sa  poche, 
Dcs  veines  d'un  caillou,  qu'il  frappe  au  iiioine  instant, 
II  iait  jaillir  un  feu  qui  petille  en  sortant; 
Et  bientot  au  brasier  d'une  nieche  enflammee, 
Montre,  a  I'aide  du  souffre,  une  cire  allumniee." 

BOII-KAU. 

"  Tlie  prudent  sexton,  studious  to  reveal 
Dark  iioles,  here  takes  from  out  his  pouch  a  steel, 
Tlien  strikes  upon  a  flint.     In  many  a  spark 
Fortli  leaps  the  spriglitly  fire  against  tiie  dark: 
The  tinder  feels  the  little  lightning  hit, 
The  match  provokes  it,  and  a  candle's  lit." 

We  shall  not  stop  to  pursue  this  fiery  point  into  all 
its  consequences  ;  to  show  what  a  world  of  beauty  or 
of  formidable  power  is  contained  in  that  single  pro- 
perty of  oin-  friend  flint;  what  fires,  what  lights,  what 
conflagrations,  what  myriads  of  clicks  of  triggers, — 
awful  sounds  before  battle,  when,  instead  of  letting 
his  flint  do  its  j^roper  good-natured  work  of  cooking 
his  supper,  and  warming  his  wife  and  himself  over 
their  cottage-fire,  the  poor  fellow  is  made  to  kill  and  be 
killed  by  other  poor  fellows,  whose  brains  are  strewed 
about  the  place  for  want  of  knowing  better. 

But  to  return  to  the  natural,  quiet  condition  of  our 
friend,  and  what  he  can  do  for  us  in  a  peaceful  way, 
and  so  as  to  please  meditation.  What  think  you  of 
him  as  the  musician  of  the  brooks?  as  the  unpretending 
player  on  those  watery  pipes  and  flageolets  during 
the  hot  noon  or  the  silence  of  the  night?  Without  the 
pebble,  the  brook  would  want  its  prettiest  murmur ; 


ox    A    PEBBLE.  21 

and  then,  in  reminding  you  of  these  murmurs,  he 
reminds  you  of  the  poets. 

"A  noise  as  of  a  hidden  brook 
In  the  leafy  month  of  June, 
That  to  the  sleeping  woods  all  night 
Singeth  a  quiet  tune." 

Coleridge. 

Yes,  the  brook  singeth  ;  but  it  would  not  sing  so 
well,  it  would  not  have  that  tone  and  ring  in  its 
music,  without  the  stone. 

"  Then  'gan  the  shepherd  gather  into  one 

BQs  straggling  goats,  and  drove  them  to  a  ford. 
Whose  coerule  stream,  rumbling  in  pebble-stone,* 
Crept  under  moss  as  green  as  any  goiu-d." 

Spenser's  Gnat. 

Spenser's  "  Gnat,"  obsen-e  •  he  wrote  a  whole  poem 
vipon  a  gnat,  and  a  most  beautiful  one  too,  founded 
upon  another  poem  on  the  same  subject  written  by  the 
great  Roman  poet  Virgil,  not  because  these  great  poets 
wanted  or  were  unequal  to  great  subjects,  such  as  all 
the  world  think  great,  but  because  they  thought  no 
care,  and  no  fetching-out  of  beauty  and  wonder,  ill 
bestowed  upon  the  smallest  marvellous  obje6l  of  God's 
workmanship.  The  gnat,  in  their  poems,  is  the  crea- 
ture that  he  really  is,  full  of  elegance  and  vivacity,  airy, 
trumpeted,  and  plumed,  and  dancing  in  the  sun- 
beams, —  not  the  contempt  of  some  thoughtless  under- 
standing, which  sees  in  it  nothing  but  an  inse6t  coming 

*  "Rumbling  in  pebble-stone"  is  a  pretty  enlargement  of  Virgil's 
svsnirrantis  ("whispering").  Green  as  any  gourd  is  also  an  improve- 
ment as  well  as  an  addition.    The  expression  is  as  fresh  as  the  color. 


22  THE    SEER. 

to  vex  its  skin.  The  e}e  of  the  poet,  or  other  informed 
man,  is  at  once  telescope  and  microscope,  —  able  to 
traverse  the  great  heavens,  and  to  do  justice  to  the  least 
thing  they  have  created.  But  to  our  brook  and  pebbles. 
See  how  one  pleasant  thing  reminds  people  of  an- 
other !  A  pebble  reminded  us  of  the  brooks  ;  and  the 
brooks,  of  the  poets  ;  and  the  poets  reminded  us  of  the 
beauty  and  comprehensiveness  of  their  words,  whether 
belonging  to  the  subjecft  in  hand  or  not.  No  true  poet 
makes  use  of  a  word  for  nothing.  "  Coerule  stream," 
says  Spenser  ;  but  why  cceriile^  which  comes  from  the 
Latin,  and  seems  a  pedantic  word,  especially  as  it 
signifies  blue^  which  he  might  have  had  in  English? 
The  reason  is,  not  only  that  it  means  sky-bhie^  and 
therefore  shows  us  how  blue  the  sky  was  at  the  time, 
and  the  cause  why  the  brook  was  of  such  a  color  (for, 
if  he  had  wantad  a  word  to  express  nothing  but  that 
circumstance,  he  might  have  said  sky-blue  at  once,  how- 
ever quaint  it  might  have  sounded  to  modern  ears : 
he  would  have  cared  nothing  for  that ;  it  was  his  busi- 
ness to  do  justice  to  nature,  and  leave  modern  ears,  as 
they  grew  poetical,  to  find  it  out)  ;  but  the  word  ccerule 
was  also  a  beautiful  word,  beautiful  for  the  sound,  and 
expressive  of  a  certain  liquid  yet  neat  softness,  some- 
what resembling  the  mixture  of  soft  hissing,  rumbling, 
and  inward  music  of  the  brook.  We  beg  the  reader's 
indulgence  for  thus  stopping  him  by  the  way  to  dwell 
on  the  beauty  of  a  word  :  but  poets'  words  are  minia- 
ture creations,  as  ciu-ious,  after  their  degree,  as  the 
insedls  and  the  brooks  themselves  ;  and,  when  com- 
panions find  themselves  in  pleasant  spots,  it  is  natuial 
to  wander  both  in  feet  and  talk. 


ON   A   PEBBLE.  23 

So  much  for  the  agreeable  sounds  of  which  the 
sight  of  a  common  stone  may  remind  us  (for  we  have 
not  chosen  to  go  so  far  back  as  the  poetry  of  Orpheus, 
who  is  said  to  have  made  the  materials  of  stone  walls 
answer  to  his  lyre,  and  dance  themselves  into  shape 
without  troubling  the  mason).  We  shall  come  to 
grander  echoes  by  and  by.  Let  us  see,  meanwhile, 
how  pleasant  the  sight  itself  may  be  rendered.  Mr. 
Wordsworth  shall  do  it  for  us  in  his  exquisite  little 
poem  on  the  fair  maiden  who  died  by  the  river  Dove. 
Our  volume  is  not  at  hand  ;  but  we  remember  the 
passage  we  more  particularly  allude  to.  It  is  where 
he  compares  his  modest,  artless,  and  sequestered 
beauty  with  — 

"A  violet  by  a  mossy  stone, 

Half  liidden  from  the  eye  ; 
Fair  as  the  star,  when  only  one 
Is  shining  in  the  sky." 

Is  not  that  beautiful  ?  Can  any  thing  express  a  lovelier 
loneliness  than  the  violet  half  hidden  by  the  mossy 
stone,  —  the  delicate  blue-eyed  flower  against  the  coun- 
try green?  And  then  the  loving  imagination  of  this 
fine  poet,  exalting  the  object  of  his  earthly  worship  to 
her  divine  birthplace  and  fviture  abode,  suddenly  raises 
his  eyes  to  the  firmament,  and  sees  her  there,  the  soli- 
tary star  of  his  heaven. 

But  Stone  docs  not  want  even  moss  to  render  him 
interesting.  Here  is  another  stone,  and  another  soli- 
tary evening  star,  as  beautifidly  introduced  as  the 
others,  but  for  a  different  purpose.  It  is  in  the  opening 
words  of  Mr.  Keats's  poem  of  "  Hyperion,"  where  he 


24  THE   SEER. 

describes  the  dethroned  monarch  of  the  gods  sittuig  in 
his  exile :  — 

"Deep  in  the  shady  sadness  of  a  vale, 
Far  simken  from  the  healthy  breath  of  Morn, 
Tar  from  the  fiery  Noon  and  Eve's  one  star. 
Sate  gray-haired  Saturn,  quiet  as  a  stone." 

Quiet  as  a  stone !  Nothing  certainly  can  be  more 
qviiet  than  that.  Not  a  syllable  or  a  sigh  will  a  stone 
utter,  though  you  watch  and  bear  him  company  for  a 
whole  week  on  the  most  desolate  moor  in  Cumberland. 
Thus  silent,  thus  unmoved,  thus  insensible  to  whatever 
circumstances  might  be  taking  place,  or  spectators 
might  think  of  him,  was  the  soul-stunned  old  patriarch 
of  the  gods.  We  may  pi6lure  to  ourselves  a  large  or 
a  small  stone,  as  we  please,  —  Stone-henge,  or  a  pebble. 
The  simplicity  and  grandeur  of  truth  do  not  care 
which.  The  silence  is  the  tiling,  —  its  intensity,  its 
unalterableness. 

Our  friend  Pebble  is  here  in  grand  comj^any,  and 
you  may  think  him  (though  we  hope  not)  unduly  bet- 
tered by  it.  But  see  what  Shakspeare  will  do  for  him 
in  his  hardest  shape,  and  in  no  finer  company  than  a 
peasant's :  — 

"  Weariness 
Can  snore  upon  the  flint,  wlien  restive  sloth 
Finds  the  down  pillow  hard." 

Sleeping  on  hard  stone  would  have  been  words 
strong  enough  for  a  common  poet ;  or  perhaps  he 
would  have  said  "resting"  or  "profoundly  reposing," 
or  that  he  could  have  made  his  "  bed  of  the  bare  floor  ;  " 
and  the  last  saying  would  not  have  been  the  worst : 


ON    A    PEBBLE.  25 

but  Shakspeare  must  have  the  very  strongest  words 
and  really  profoundest  expressions,  and  he  finds  them 
in  the  homeliest  and  most  primitive.  He  does  not 
mince  the  matter,  but  goes  to  the  root  of  both  sleep 
and  stone,  —  can  snore  upon  the  Jllnt.  We  see  the 
fellow  hard  at  it,  bent  upon  it ;  deeply  drinking  of  the 
forgetful  draught. 

To  conclude  our  quotations  from  the  poets,  we  will 
give  another  line  or  two  from  Shakspeare,  not  inappli- 
cable to  our  proposed  speculations  in  general,  and  still 
less  so  to  the  one  in  hand. 

Green,  a  minor  poet,  author  of  the  "  Spleen,"  —  an 
effusion  full  of  wit  and  good  sense,  —  gives  pleasant 
advice  to  the  sick  who  want  exercise,  and  who  are 
frightened  with  hypochondria  :  — 

"Fling  but  a  stone,  the  giant  dies." 

And  this  reminds  us  of  a  pleasant  story  connedled 
with  the  flinging  of  stones,  in  one  of  the  Italian  novels. 
Two  waggish  painters  persuade  a  simple  brother  of 
theirs,  that  there  is  a  plant  which  renders  the  finder 
of  it  invisible  ;  and  they  all  set  out  to  look  for  it.  They 
pretend  suddenly  to  miss  him,  as  if  he  had  gone  away ; 
and  to  his  great  joy,  while  throwing  stones  about  in 
his  absence,  give  him  great  knocks  in  the  ribs,  and 
horrible  bruises ;  he  hugging  himself  all  the  while  at 
these  manifest  proofs  of  his  success,  and  the  little  sus- 
picion which  they  have  of  it.  It  is  amusing  to  picture 
him  to  one's  fancy,  gi'owing  happier  as  the  blows  grow 
worse,  rubbing  his  sore  knuckles  with  delight,  and 
hardly  able  to  ejaculate  a  triumphant  "  Hah  !  "  at  some 
excessive  thump  in  the  back. 

3 


26  THE    SEER. 

But,  setting  aside  the  wonders  of  the  poets  and  the 
novelists,  Pebble,  in  his  own  person  and  by  his  own 
family  alliances,  includes  wonders  far  beyond  the  most 
wonderful  things  they  have  imagined.  Wrongly  is 
Flint  compared  with  the  miser.  You  cannot,  to  be 
sure,  skin  him  :  but  you  can  melt  him  ;  ay,  make  him 
absolutely  flow  into  a  liquid,  —  flow,  too,  for  i.\se  and 
beauty,  and  become  light  unto  your  eyes,  goblets  to 
yoiu'  table,  and  a  mirror  to  3'oin-  beloved.  Bring  two 
friends  of  his  about  him,  called  Potash  and  Soda,  and 
Flint  runs  into  melting  tenderness,  and  is  no  longer 
Flint :  he  is  Glass.  You  look  through  him ;  you 
drink  out  of  him ;  he  fiu'nishes  you  beautiful  and 
transparent  shutters  against  the  rain  and  cold ;  you 
shave  by  him  ;  protect  pictures  with  him,  and  watches, 
and  books ;  are  assisted  by  him  in  a  thousand  curi- 
ous philosophies ;  are  helped  over  the  sea  by  him  ; 
and  he  makes  your  cathedral  windows  divine,  and 
enables  your  mistress  to  wear  your  portrait  in  her 
bosom. 

But  we  must  hasten  to  close  our  article,  and  bring 
his  most  precious  riches  down  in  a  shower  surpassing 
the  rainbow.  Stone  is  the  humble  relation,  nay,  the 
stock  and  parent,  of  Precious  Stone  I  Ruby,  Emerald, 
and  Sapphire  are  of  his  family  !  —  of  the  family  of  the 
Flints  ;  and  Flint  is  more  in  them  than  any  thing  else  ! 
That  the  habitations  and  secret  bosoms  of  the  precious 
metals  ai"e  stone,  is  also  true  ;  but  it  is  little  compared 
with  this.  Precious  stone,  for  the  most  part,  is  stone 
itself,  is  flint,  with  some  wonderful  circumstance  of 
addition,  nobody  knows  what ;  but,  without  the  flint, 
the  preciousness  would  not  be.     Here  is  wealth  and 


ON    A    PEBBLE.  27 

honor  for  the  poor  Pebble  !     Look  at  him,  and  think 
what  splendors  issue  from  his  loins :  — 

"Fiery  opals,  sapphires,  amethysts, 
Jacinths,  hard  topaz,  grass-green  emeralds, 
Beauteous  rubies,  sparkling  diamonds, 
And  seld-seen  costly  stones  of  so  great  price, 
As  one  of  them,  indiiferently  rated, 
Might  serve,  in  peril  of  calamity, 
To  ransom  great  kings  from  captivity." 

Marlo-we. 

"Sparkling  diamonds"  are  not  properly  in  our  list 
of  pebbles  ;  for  diamond,  the  most  brilliant  mystery  of 
all,  is  a  charcoal ! 

What  now  remains  for  slone,  thus  filling  the  coffers 
of  wealth,  glorifying  the  crowns  of  sultans,  and  adding 
beams  to  beauty  itself?  One  thing  greater  than  all. 
The  oldest  and  stoniest  of  stone  is  granite,  and  granite 
(as  far  as  we  know)  is  the  chief  material  of  the  earth 
itself,  —  the  bones  of  the  world,  the  substance  of  our 
s^ar. 

Honored,  therefore,  be  thou,  thou  small  pebble  lying 
in  the  lane  ;  and,  whenever  any  one  looks  at  thee,  may 
he  think  of  the  beautiful  and  noble  world  he  lives  in, 
and  all  of  which  it  is  capable  ! 


28 


SPRING. 


HIS  moiTiIng,  as  we  sat  at  breakfast,  thinking 
of  our  present  subje6l,  with  our  eyes  fixed  on 
a  set  of  the  British  Poets,  which  stand  us  in 
stead  of  a  prospe6t,  there  came  by  the  window,  from  a 
child's  voice,  a  cry  of  "  Wallflowers  !  "  There  had  just 
been  a  shower ;  sunshine  had  followed  it ;  and  the 
rain,  the  sun,  the  boy's  voice,  and  the  flowers  came 
all  so  prettily  together  upon  the  subje(5l  we  were  think- 
ing of,  that,  in  taking  one  of  his  roots,  we  could  not 
help  fancying  we  had  received  a  present  from  Nature 
herself,  with  a  penny  for  the  bearer.  There  were 
thirty  lumps  of  buds  on  this  penny  root :  their  beauty 
was  yet  to  come;  but  the  promise  was  there,  —  the 
new  life,  the  spring ;  and  the  raindrops  were  on 
them,  as  if  the  sweet  goddess  had  dipped  her  hand  in 
some  fountain,  and  sprinkled  them  for  us  by  way  of 
message  ;  as  who  should  say,  "  April  and  I  are  com- 
ing." 

What  a  beautiful  word  is  Spring  I  At  least,  one 
fancies  so,  knowing  the  meaning  of  it,  and  being  used 
to  identify  it  with  so  many  pleasant  things.  An  Italian 
might  find  it  harsh,  and  obje6t  to  the  Sp  and  the  ter- 
minating consonant :  but  if  he  were  a  proper  Italian, 
a  man  of  fancy,  the  worthy  countryman  of  Petrarch 
and  Ariosto,  we  would  convince  him  that  the  word 


SPRING.  29 

was  an  excellent  good  word,  crammed  as  full  of  beauty 
as  a  bud  ;  and  that  S  had  the  whistling  of  the  brook? 
in  it,  p  and  r  the  force  and  roughness  of  whatsoever  is 
animated  and  picturesque,  z'ng-  the  singing  of  the  birds, 
and  the  whole  word  the  suddenness  and  salience  of  all 
that  is  lively,  sprouting,  and  new,  —  spring,  spring- 
time, a  spring-green,  a  spring  of  water ;  to  spring ; 
springal,  a  word  for  a  young  man,  in  old  (that  is,  ever 
new)  English  poetry,  which  with  many  other  words 
has  gone  out,  because  the  youthfulness  of  our  hearts 
has  gone  out,  —  to  come  back  with  better  times,  and 
the  nine-hundredth  number  of  the  work  before  us. 

If  our  Italian,  being  very  unlike  an  Italian,  ill-na- 
tured, and  not  open  to  pleasant  conviction,  should  still 
obje6t  to  our  word,  we  would  grow  uncourteous  in 
turn,  and  swear  it  was  a  better  word  than  his  Prhiia- 
vera,  —  which  is  what  he  calls  Spring,  —  Prima-vera  ; 
that  is  to  say,  the  Jirst  Vera,  or  Ver  of  the  Latins,  the 
Veer  {finp  lonice)  or  Ear  of  the  Greeks  ;  and  what  that 
means,  nobody  very  well  knows.  But  why  Prima- 
vera?  and  what  is  Seco?ida,  or  second  Vera?  The 
word  is  too  long  and  lazy,  as  well  as  obscure,  com- 
pared with  our  brisk,  little,  potent,  obvious,  and  leap- 
ing Spring,  full  of  all  fountains,  buds,  birds,  sweet- 
briers,  and  sunbeams. 

"  Leaping,  like  wanton  kids  in  pleasant  spring,"  — 

savs  the  poet,  speaking  of  the  "wood-born  people" 
that  flocked  about  fair  Serena.  How  much  better  the 
word  spring-  suits  here  with  the  word  leaping,  than  if 
it  had  been  prima-vera !  How  much  more  sudden 
and  starting,  like  the  boundings  of  the  kids  !     Prima- 


30 


THE    SEER. 


vera  is  a  beautiful  word  ;  let  us  not  gainsay  it :  but 
it  is  more  suitable  to  the  maturity  than  to  the  very 
springing  of  springs  as  its  first  syllable  would  pre- 
tend. So  long  and  comparatively  languid  a  word 
oucrht  to  belong  to  that  side  of  the  season  which  is 
next  to  summer.  Vcr^  the  Latin  word,  is  better,  —  or 
rather  Greek  word  ;  for,  as  we  have  shown  before,  it 
comes  from  the  Greek,  like  almost  every  good  thing  in 
Latin.  It  is  a  pity  one  does  not  know  what  it  means  : 
for  the  Greeks  had  "  good  meanings "  (as  Sir  Hugh 
Evans  would  say)  ;  and  their  Ver^  Feer^  or  Ear^  we 
may  be  sure,  meant  something  j^le^sant,  —  possibly 
the  rising  of  the  sap,  or  something  conne6led  with  the 
new  air,  or  with  love ;  for  etymologists,  with  their 
happy  facilities,  might  bring  it  from  the  roots  of  such 
w^ords.  Ben  Jonson  has  made  a  beautiful  name  of  its 
ad)e6tive  i^Earinos^  vernal)  for  the  heroine  of  his 
''Sad  Shepherd:"  — 

"  Earine, 
"Wlio  had  her  very  being  and  her  name 
"With  the  first  knots  or  buddhigs  of  the  Spring; 
Born  with  the  primrose  and  the  violet. 
Or  earliest  roses  blown  ;  wlien  Cupid  smiled, 
And  Venus  led  the  Graces  out  to  dance ; 
And  all  the  flowers  and  sweets  in  Natiu-e's  lap 
Leaped  out." 

The  lightest  thoughts  have  their  roots  in  gravity, 
and  the  most  fugitive  colors  of  the  world  are  set  off 
by  the  mighty  background  of  eternity.  One  of  the 
greatest  pleasures  of  so  light  and  airy  a  thing  as 
the  vernal  season  arises  from  the  consciousness,  that 
the  world  is  young  again  ;   that  the  spring  has  come 


srRiNO,  31 

round  ;  that  we  shall  not  all  cease,  and  be  no  world. 
Nature  has  begun  again,  and  not  begun  for  nothhig. 
One  fancies  somehow  that  she  could  not  have  the 
heart  to  put  a  stop  to  us  in  April  or  May.  She 
may  pluck  away  a  poor  little  life  here  and  there  ;  nay, 
many  blossoms  of  youth :  but  not  all,  not  the  whole 
garden  of  life.  She  prunes,  but  does  not  destroy.  If 
she  did  ;  if  she  were  in  the  mind  to  have  done  with 
us^  —  to  look  upon  us  as  an  experiment  not  worth 
going  on  with ;  as  a  set  of  ungenial  and  obstinate  com- 
pounds which  refused  to  co-operate  in  her  sweet  de- 
signs, and  could  not  be  made  to  answer  in  the  working  ; 
depend  upon  it,  she  would  take  pity  on  our  incapability 
and  bad  humors,  and  conveniently  quash  us  in  some 
dismal,  sullen  winter's  day,  just  at  the  natural  dying  of 
the  }'ear,  most  likely  in  November  ;  for  Christmas  is  a 
sort  of  spring  itself,  a  winter-flowering.  We  care 
nothing  for  arguments  about  storms,  earthquakes,  or 
other  apparently  unseasonable  interruptions  of  our 
pleasures :  we  imitate,  in  that  respe6l,  the  magnani- 
mous indifference,  or  what  appears  such,  of  the  Great 
JNIother  herself,  knowing  that  she  means  us  the  best  in 
the  gross ;  and  also  that  we  may  all  get  our  remedies 
for  these  evils  in  time,  if  we  co-operate  as  before  §aiJ. 
People  in  South  America,  for  instance,  may  learn  from 
experience,  and  bziild  so  as  to  make  a  comparative 
nothing  of  those  rockings  of  the  ground.  It  is  of  the 
g}'oss  itself  that  we  speak  ;  and  sure  we  are,  that,  with 
an  eye  to  that^  Nature  docs  not  feel  as  Pope  ventures 
to  say  she  does,  or  see  "  with  equal  eye  "  — 

"Atoms  or  systems  into  ruin  hurled, 
And  now  a  bubble  burst,  and  now  a  wovM." 


33  THE    SEER. 

He  may  have  flattered  himself  that  he  should  think  it 
a  fine  thing  for  his  little  poetship  to  sit  upon  a  star, 
and  look  grand  in  his  own  eyes,  from  an  eye  so  very 
dispassionate  ;  but  Nature,  who  is  the  author  of  pas- 
sion and  joy  and  sorrow,  does  not  look  upon  animate 
and  inanimate,  depend  upon  it,  with  the  same  want  of 
sympathy.  "A  world"  full  of  loves  and  hopes  and 
cMideavors,  and  of  her  own  life  and  loveliness,  is  a  far 
greater  thing  in  her  eyes,  rest  assured,  than  a  "  bub- 
ble ;  "  and  a  fortiori^  many  worlds,  or  a  "  system,"  far 
gi-eater  than  the  "  atom"  talked  of  with  so  much  com- 
placency by  this  divine  little  whipper-snapper.  Ergo^ 
the  moment  the  kind  mother  gives  promise  of  a  re- 
newed year  with  these  her  green  and  budding  signals, 
be  certain  she  is  not  going  to  falsify  them  ;  and  that, 
being  sure  of  April,  we  are  sure  as  far  as  November. 
As  to  our  existence  any  further,  that,  we  conceive, 
depends  somewhat  upon  how  we  behave  ourselves  ; 
and  therefore  we  would  exhort  everybody  to  do  their 
best  for  the  earth,  and  all  that  is  upon  it,  in  order  that 
it  and  they  may  be  thought  worth  continuance. 

What !  shall  we  be  put  into  a  beautiful  garden,  and 
turn  up  ovir  noses  at  it,  and  call  it  a  "  vale  of  tears,"  and 
all  sorts  of  bad  names  (helping  thereby  to  make  it  so), 
and  yet  confidently  reckon  that  Nature  will  never  shut 
it  up,  and  have  done  with  it,  or  set  about  forming  a 
better  stock  of  inhabitants?  Recolledl,  we  beseech 
you,  dear  "  Lord  Worldly  Wiseman,"  and  you,  "  Sir 
Having,"  and  my  lady  "  Greedy,"  that  there  is  rea- 
son for  supposing  that  man  was  not  always  an  inha- 
bitant of  this  very  fashionable  world,  and  somewhat 
larger   globe ;   and    that   pei'haps  the  chief  occupant 


SPRING.  33 

before  him  was  only  of  an  inferior  species  to  ourselves 
(odd  as  you  may  think  it),  who  could  not  be  brought 
to  only  know  what  a  beautiful  place  he  lived  in,  and 
so  had  another  chance  given  him  in  a  difterent  shape. 
Good  heavens  !  if  there  were  none  but  J7tere  ladies  and 
gentlemen,  and  city-men  and  soldiers,  upon  earth, 
and  no  poets,  readers,  and  milk-maids  to  remind  us 
that  there  was  such  a  thing  as  Nature,  we  really 
should  begin  to  tremble  for  Almack's  and  Change 
Alley  about  the  20th  of  next  October ! 


34 


COLOR. 


M$.^. 


N  this  beloved,  beautiful,  but  sometimes  fog- 
gy, and  too  often  not  very  brilliant,  country  of 
ours,  we  are  not  fond  enough  of  colors^  —  not 
fond  enough  of  a  beauty  of  which  Nature  herself  is 
evidently  very  fond ^  and  with  which,  like  all  the  rest 
of  her  beauties,  it  is  the  business  of  civilized  man  to 
adorn  and  improve  his  own  well-being.  The  summer 
season  is  a  good  time  for  becoming  acquainted  with 
them  ;  for  it  is  then  we  see  them  best,  and  may  ac- 
quire a  relish  for  them  against  the  insipidity  of  winter. 
We  remember  a  dyer  in  Genoa,  who  used  to  hang  out 
his  silks  upon  a  high  wall  opposite  his  shop,  where 
they  shone  with  such  lustre  under  the  blue  sky  (we 
particularly  remember  some  yellow  ones),  that  it  was 
a  treat  to  pass  that  way.  You  hailed  them  at  a  dis- 
tance, like  — 

"  Another  sun 
Risen  at  noonday  ;  "  — 

or  as  if  Natine  herself  had  been  making  some  drape- 
ries out  of  buttercups,  and  had  just  presented  the 
world  with  the  phenomenon.  It  is  the  blue  sky  and 
clear  air  of  their  native  land  which  have  made  the  Ital- 
ian painters  so  famous  for  coloring ;  and  Rubens  and 
Watteau,  like  wise  men,  saw  the  good  of  ti^ansferring 


COLOR.  35 


the  beauty  to  the  less  fortunate  cHmate  of  Flanders. 
One  of  the  first  things  that  attradted  our  notice  in  Italy 
was  a  red  cap  on  the  head  of  a  boatman.  In  Eng- 
land, where  nobody  else  wears  such  a  cap,  we  should 
have  thought  of  a  butcher :  in  Italy,  the  sky  set  it  oft' 
to  such  advantage,  that  it  I'eminded  us  of  a  scarlet  bud. 
The  Puritans,  who  did  us  a  great  deal  of  good, 
helped  to  do  this  harm  for  us.  They  degraded  ma- 
terial beauty  and  gladness,  as  if  essentially  hostile  to 
what  was  spiritually  estimable  ;  whereas  the  desirable 
thing  is  to  show  the  compatibility  of  both,  and  vindi- 
cate the  hues  of  the  creation.  Thus  the  finest  colors 
in  men's  dresses  have  at  last  almost  come  to  be  con- 
fined to  livery  servants  and  soldiers.  A  soldier's  wife, 
or  a  market-woman,  is  the  only  female  that  ventures 
to  wear  a  scarlet  cloak  ;  and  we  have  a  favorite  epithet 
of  vituperation,  gaudy,  which  we  bestow  upon  all 
coloi-s  that  do  not  suit  our  melancholy.  It  is  sheer 
want  of  heart  and  animal  spirits.  We  were  not  always 
so.  Puritanism  and  wars  and  debts,  and  the  Dutch 
succession,  and  false  ideas  of  utility,  have  all  conspired 
to  take  gladness  out  of  our  eyesight,  as  well  as  jollity 
out  of  our  pockets.  We  shall  recover  a  better  taste, 
and  we  trust  exhibit  it  to  better  advantage  than  before  ; 
but  we  must  begin  by  having  faith  in  as  many  good 
things  as  possible,  and  not  think  ill  of  any  one  of 
Heaven's  means  of  making  us  cheerful,  because  in  itself 
it  is  cheerful.  "  If  a  merry  meeting  is  to  be  wished," 
says  the  man  in  Shakspeare,  "  may  God  prohibit  it  I  " 
So,  the  more  obviously  cheerful  and  desirable  any  thing 
is,  the  more  we  seem  to  beg  the  question  in  its  dis- 
favoj.     Reds  and  yellows  and  bright  blues  are  "  gau- 


36  THE    SEER. 

dy : "  we  must  have  nothing  but  browns  and  blacks, 
and  drab-color  or  stone.  Earth  is  not  of  this  opinion, 
nor  the  heavens  either.  Gardens  do  not  think  so,  nor 
the  fields,  nor  the  skies,  nor  the  mountains,  nor  dawn, 
nor  sunset,  nor  light  itself,  which  is  made  of  colors, 
and  holds  them  always  ready  in  its  crystal  quiver,  to 
shoot  forth  and  divide  into  loveliness.  The  beautiful 
atti-a6ts  the  beautiful.  Colors  find  homes  of  color. 
To  red  go  the  red  rays,  and  to  purple  the  pui-ple. 
The  rainbow  reads  its  beauteous  le6lure  in  the  clouds, 
showing  the  sweet  division  of  the  hues  ;  and  the  me- 
chanical "  philosopher,"  as  he  calls  himself,  smiles  with 
an  air  of  superiority,  and  thinks  he  knows  all  about 
it,  because  the  division  is  made. 

The  little  child,  like  the  real  philosopher,  Jcjtows 
more;  for  his  "  heart  leaps  up,"  and  he  acknowledges 
a  glad  mystery.  He  feels  the  immensity  of  what  he 
does  not  know ;  and,  though  the  purely  mechanical- 
minded  man  admits  that  sucb  immensity  exists  with 
regard  to  himself,  he  does  not  feel  it  as  the  child  or  the 
wiser  man  does,  and  therefore  he  does  not  truly  per- 
ceive, —  does  not  thoroughly  take  it  into  his  conscious- 
ness. He  talks  and  a6ls  as  if  he  had  come  to  the 
extent  of  his  knowledge ;  and  he  has  so.  But  be- 
yond the  dry  line  of  knowledge  lies  beauty,  and  all 
which  is  beautiful  in  hope,  and  exalting  in  imagina- 
tion. 

We  feel  as  if  there  were  a  moral  as  well  as  material 
beauty  in  color,  —  an  inherent  gladness,  —  an  intention 
on  the  part  of  Nature  to  share  with  us  a  pleasure  felt 
by  herself.  Colors  are  the  smiles  of  Nature.  When 
they  are  extremely  smiling,  and  break  forth  into  other 


COLOR.  37 

beauty  besides,  they  are  her  laughs  ;  as  in  the  flowers. 
The  "  laughing  flowers,"  says  the  poet ;  and  it  is  the 
business  of  the  poet  to  feel  truths  beyond  the  proof 
of  the  mechanician.  Nature  at  all  events,  humanly 
speaking,  is  manifestly  very  fond  of  color ;  for  she 
has  made  nothing  "jjithout  it.  Her  skies  are  blue  ; 
her  fields  green  ;  her  waters  vary  with  her  skies  ;  her 
animals,  minerals,  vegetables,  are  all  colored.  She 
paints  a  great  many  of  them  in  apparently  superfluous 
hues,  as  if  to  show  the  dullest  eye  how  she  loves  color. 
The  pride  of  the  peacock,  or  some  stately  exhibition 
of  a  qualit}^  very  like  pride,  is  a  singular  matter  of 
fa6t,  evidently  connected  with  it.  Youthful  beauty  in 
the  human  being  is  partly  made  up  of  it.  One  of 
the  three  great  arts  with  which  Providence  has 
adorned  and  humanized  the  mind  —  Painting  —  is 
founded  upon  the  love  and  imitation  of  it.  And  the 
magnificence  of  empire  can  find  nothing  more  preci- 
ous, either  to  possess  or  be  proud  of  wearing,  than  — 

"  Fiery  opals,  sapphires,  amethysts, 
Jacinths,  hard  topaz,  grass-green  emeralds, 
Beauteous  rubies,  sparkhng  diamonds, 
And  seld-seen  costly  stones  of  so  great  price, 
As  one  of  them,  indifferently  rated, 
May  serve  in  peril  of  calamity 
To  ransom  great  kings  from  captivity."  * 

*  We  had  just  quoted  these  lines  before ;  but  the  reader  will  doubt- 
less pardon  the  ropetition. 


298368 


38 


WINDOWS. 


p^i^^-Pi'E    have  had  a  special  regard  for  a  window 


'>T/Vc4i    ^^'^^'  ^""1^6  we  sat  in  an  old-fashioned  one 
i^§M^-'l\   with  a  low  seat  to  it  in  our  childhood,  and 


read  a  book.  And,  for  a  like  reason,  we  never  see  a 
doorway  in  a  sequestered  corner,  with  a  similar  ac- 
commodation for  the  infiint  student,  without  nestling 
to  it  in  imagination,  and  taking  out  of  our  pocket  the 
"Arabian  Nights,"  or  "Philip  Qiiarll."  The  same 
recolledlion  makes  us  prefer  that  kind  of  window  to  all 
others,  and  count  our  daily  familiarity  with  it  as  by  no 
means  among  the  disser^'ices  rendered  us  by  fortune. 
The  very  fact  of  its  existence  shows  a  liberality  in  the 
dimensions  of  old-fashioned  walls.  There  is  "  cut  and 
come  again"  in  them.  Had  modern  houses  been 
made  of  cheeses,  and  La  Fontaine's  mouse  found  him- 
self in  one  of  them,  he  would  have  despised  those 
rinds  of  buildings,  —  thin  and  fragile  as  if  a  miser  had 
pared  them  away. 

Those  modern  windows  are  all  of  a  piece,  inside 
and  out.  They  may  make  a  show  of  having  some 
thickness  of  wall  at  the  sides :  but  it  is  only  a  hollow 
pretence  for  the  convenience  of  the  shutters  ;  and,  even 
when  the  opportunity  of  forming  a  recess  is  thus 
offered  them,  it  is  not  taken.     It  is  seldom  they  con- 


WINDOWS.  39 

tain  a  seat  even  in  the  parlor :  and  the  drawing-room 
windows  in  sucli  liouses  cannot  comfortably  have  any, 
because,  for  the  benefit  of  one's  feet  in  this  cold  cli- 
mate, they  are  cut  down  to  the  floor ;  a  veranda  being 
probably  overhead  to  intercept  any  superfluity  of  sun- 
shine. "  If  a  merry  meeting  is  to  be  wished,"  says 
the  man  in  Shakspeare,  "  may  God  prohibit  it !  "  If 
there  is  any  sunshine  to  be  had,  stave  it  off",  especially 
if  you  have  been  grumbling  for  its  absence  all  the  rest 
of  the  year. 

"  Would  you  have  us  sit  then,  and  be  baked,  ]Mr. 
Seer?" 

Dear  madam,  you  ask  the  question  with  so  pleasant 
a  voice,  and  such  a  pretty  good-natured  exaggeration, 
that  you  are  evidently  one  of  those  who  may  do,  or  not 
do,  just  what  you  please.  We  shall  not  find  fault  with 
you,  if  you  close  every  shutter  in  the  room,  let  the  sun 
be  never  so  smiling.  Besides,  we  give  up  the  hottest 
days  in  July  and  August.  But  grant  us,  at  any  rate, 
that  to  have  vei'andas  always,  as  we  see  them  in  some 
houses,  is  hardly  more  reasonable  than  having  win- 
dows down  to  the  floor  at  any  thne ;  and  that  the  hor- 
ror of  a  sunshine,  by  no  means  too  abundant  in  this 
region,  has  more  to  do  with  the  fear  of  discolored 
curtains  and  carpets  than  it  ought  to  have,  especially 
among  the  rich.  What  signifies  the  flying  of  a  few 
colors,  easily  replaced,  compared  with  the  giving  a 
proper  welcome  to  the  great  colorer  himself, —  the 
sun,  that  makes  all  things  beautiful  ?  There  are  few 
sights  in  your  town-house  more  cheerful  than  a  sudden 
burst  of  sun  into  the  room,  smiting  the  floor  into  so 
many  windows,   and   making   the  roses  on  the  very 


40  THE    SEER. 

carpet  look  as  if  tliey  felt  it.  Let  them  fade  in  good 
season  as  the  others  do  ;  and  make  up  for  the  expense, 
dear  fashionable  people,  by  staying  a  little  more  at 
home,  keeping  better  hours,  and  saving  the  roses  on 
your  cheeks. 

Verandas  have  one  good  efle6l :  they  are  an  orna- 
ment to  the  house  outside,  and  serve  to  hide  the 
shabby  cut  of  the  windows.  Still  more  is  to  be  said 
for  them  where  they  and  the  balcony  include  flowers. 
Yet  windows  down  to  the  floor  we  hold  to  be  a  nui- 
sance always,  —  unnecessary,  uncomfortable,  absurd  ; 
to  say  nothing  of  perils  of  broken  panes  and  scolded 
children.  They  let  draughts  of  air  in  across  the  floor, 
where  nobody  wants  them  ;  they  admit  superfluous 
light,  —  from  earthwai'ds  instead  of  from  heaven  ;  they 
render  a  seat  in  the  window  impossible  or  disagi'eea- 
ble  ;  they  hinder  the  fire  from  sufficiently  warming  the 
room  in  winter-time  ;  and  they  make  windows  partake 
too  much  of  out-of-doors,  showing  the  inhabitants  at 
full-length  as  they  walk  about,  and  contradi6ling  the 
sense  of  snugness  and  seclusion.  Lastly,  when  they 
have  no  veil  or  other  ornament  outside,  they  look 
gawky  and  out  of  proportion.  But  the  outside  cut  of 
windows  in  this  country  is  almost  universally  an  eye- 
sore. We  have  denounced  them  before,  and  shall 
denounce  them  again,  in  the  hopes  that  house-builders 
may  be  brought  to  show  some  proofs  of  being  the 
"architects"  they  cafl  themselves,  and  dare  to  go 
to  an  expense  of  nine  and  sixpence  for  a  little  wood 
or  plaster  to  make  a  border  with.  Look  at  the 
windows  down  the  streets,  at  the  west  end  of  the 
town,  and  they  are  almost  all  mere  cuts  in  the  wall, 


WINDOWS. 


41 


just  such  as  they  make  for  barracks  and  work- 
houses. The  windows  of  an  Irish  cabin  are  as  good, 
as  far  as  architecture  is  concerned.  The  port-holes 
of-  a  man-of-war  have  as  much  merit.  There  is  no 
pediment  nor  border ;  seldom  even  one  visible  vari- 
ety of  any  sort ;  not  a  colored  brick.  And  it  is  the 
same  with  the  streets  that  contain  shops,  except,  in 
some  instances,  those  of  the  latest  constru(5lion  ;  which, 
if  not  in  the  best  taste  otherwise,  are  built  with  a 
little  more  generosity,  and  that  is  a  good  step  towards 
taste.  When  we  meet  with  windows  of  a  better  sort, 
the  effect  is  like  quitting  the  sight  of  a  stupid  miser  for 
that  of  a  liberal  genius.  Such  are  the  windows  in 
some  of  the  nobler  squares ;  and  you  may  see  them 
occasionally  over  shops  in  the  Strand  and  Piccadilly. 
Obsei-ve  for  instance  the  windows  of  Messrs.  Greensill 
and  Co.,  the  lamp-oil  manufacturers  in  the  Strand, 
compared  with  those  of  the  neighbors  ;  and  see  what 
a  superiority  is  given  to  them  by  the  mere  fact  of  their 
having  borders,  and  something  like  architedlural  de- 
sign. We  will  venture  to  say,  it  is  serviceable  even  in 
a  business  point  of  view  :  for  such  houses  look  wealth- 
ier ;  and  it  is  notorious,  that  the  i^eputation  of  money 
brings  money.  Where  there  is  no  elegance  of  this 
kind  (and  of  course  also  where  there  is),  a  box  of 
flowers  along  the  v^'indows  gives  a  liberal  look  to  a 
house,  still  more  creditable  to  the  occupants,  from  the 
certainty  we  have  of  its  being  their  own  work.  See, 
in  Piccadilly,  the  houses  of  Messrs.  Rickards,  the  spirit- 
merchants,  near  Regent  Street ;  and  Messrs.  Meyer  and 
Co.,  the  wax-chandlers,  near  the  Park  end.  We  never 
pass  the  latter  without  being  grateful  for  the  beautiful 

VOL.    I.  4 


42  THE    SEER. 

show  of  nasturtiums,  —  a  plant  which  it  is  an  elegance 
itself  to  have  so  much  regard  for.  There  is  also  some- 
thing very  agreeable  iii  the  good-natured  kind  of  inter- 
course thus  kept  up  between  the  inmates  of  a  house 
and  those  who  pass  it.  The  former  appeal  to  one's 
good  opinion  in  the  best  manner  by  complimenting 
us  with  a  share  of  their  elegances ;  and  the  latter  are 
happy  to  acknowledge  the  appeal,  for  their  own  sakes 
as  well  as  that  of  the  flowers.  Imagine  (what  perhaps 
will  one  day  be  the  case)  whole  streets  adorned  in  this 
manner,  right  and  left ;  and  multitudes  proceeding  on 
their  tasks  through  avenues  of  lilies  and  geraniums. 
Why  should  they  not  ?  Nature  has  given  us  the 
means,  and  they  are  innocent,  animating,  and  contri- 
bute to  our  piety  towards  her.  We  do  not  half  enough 
avail  ourselves  of  the  cheap  riches  wherewith  she 
adorns  the  earth.  We  also  get  the  most  trivial  mis- 
takes in  our  head,  and  think  them  refinements,  and  are 
afraid  of  being  "  vulgar"  !  A  few  seeds,  for  instance, 
and  a  little  trouble,  would  clothe  our  houses  every 
summer,  as  high  as  we  chose,  with  draperies  of  green 
and  scarlet ;  and,  after  admiring  the  beauty,  we  might 
eat  the  produce.  But  then  this  produce  is  a  bean  ;  and, 
because  beans  are  found  at  poor  tables,  we  despise 
them  !  Nobody  despises  a  vine  in  front  of  a  house  ; 
for  vines  are  polite,  and  the  grapes  seldom  good 
enough  to  be  of  any  use.  Well :  use,  we  grant,  is 
not  the  only  thing ;  but  surely  we  have  no  right  to 
think  ourselves  unbigoted  to  it,  when  it  teaches  us 
to  despise  beauty.  In  Italy,  where  the  drink  is  not 
common,  people  have  a  great  respec5l  for  bccr^  and 
would  perhaps  rather   see  a  drapery  of  hops   at  the 


WINDOWS.  43 

front  of  a  house  than  vine-leaves.  Hops  are  like 
vines ;  yet  who  thinks  of  adorning  his  house  with 
them  in  England?  No:  they  remind  us  of  the  ale- 
house instead  of  Nature  and  her  beauties  ;  and  there- 
fore they  are  "  vulgar."  But  is  it  not  we  who  are 
vulgar  in  thinking  of  the  ale-house,  when  Nature 
and  her  beauties  are  the  greater  idea? 

It  is  objedted  to  vegetation  against  walls  and  win- 
dows, that  it  liarbors  insects  ;  and  good  housewives 
declare  they  shall  be  "  overrun."  If  this  be  the  fa6t, 
care  should  be  taken  against  the  consequences  ;  and, 
should  the  care  prove  unavailing,  every  thing  must  be 
sacrificed  to  cleanliness.  But  is  the  charge  well 
founded?  and,  if  well  founded  in  respect  to  some  sorts 
of  vegetation,  is  it  equally  so  with  all?  we  mean,  with 
regard  to  the  inability  to  keep  out  the  inseds.  There 
is  a  prejudice  against  ivy  on  houses,  on  the  score  of  its 
harboring  wet,  and  making  the  houses  damp  ;  yet  this 
opinion  has  been  discovered  to  be  so  groundless,  that 
the  very  contrary  is  the  fad.  Ivy  is  found  to  be  a 
remedy  for  damp  walls.  It  wards  off  the  rain,  and 
secures  to  them  a  remarkable  state  of  dryness ;  as  any 
one  may  see  for  himself  by  turning  a  bush  of  it  aside, 
and  observing  the  singular  drought  and  dustiness  pre- 
vailinsr  between  the  brick  or  mortar  and  the  back  of 
the  leaves. 

Plate-class  has  a  beautiful  look  in  windows  ;  but 
it  is  too  costly  to  become  general.  We  remember, 
when  the  late  Mrs.  Orby  Hunter  lived  in  Grosvenor 
Place,  it  was  quite  a  treat  to  pass  by  her  parlor  win- 
dow, which  was  an  arch,  full  of  large  panes  of  plate- 
glass,  with  a  box  of  brilliant  flowers  underneath   it, 


^  THE    SEER. 

and  jessamine  and  other  creepers  making  a  bower  of 
the  walL  Perhaps  the  house  has  the  same  aspe6t  still ; 
but  we  thought  the  female  name  on  the  door  was  par- 
ticularly suited  to  it,  and  had  a  just  ostentation. 

Painted  g-lass  is  still  finer :  but  we  have  never  seen 
it  used  in  the  front-windows  of  a  house,  except  in  nar- 
row strips  or  over  doorways  ;  which  is  a  pity,  for  its 
loveliness  is  extreme.  A  good  portion  of  the  upper 
part  of  a  window  or  windows  might  be  allotted  to  it, 
with  great  effect,  in  houses  where  there  is  light  to 
spare  ;  and  it  might  be  turned  to  elegant  and  otherwise 
useful  account  by  means  of  devices,  and  even  regular 
pictures.  A  beautiful  art,  little  known,  might  thus  be 
restored.  But  we  must  have  a  separate  article  on 
painted  windows,  which  are  a  kind  of  passion  of  ours. 
They  make  us  loath  to  speak  of  them,  without  stop- 
ping, and  receiving  on  our  admiring  eyes  the  beauty 
of  their  blessing.  For  such  is  the  feeling  they  always 
give  us.  They  seem,  beyond  any  other  inanimate 
objedt,  except  the  finest  pictures  by  the  great  masters 
(which  can  hardly  be  called  such),  to  unite  something 
celestial  with  the  most  gorgeous  charm  of  the  senses. 
There  are  more  reasons  tlian  one  for  this  feeling ;  but 
we  must  not  be  tempted  to  enter  upon  them  here. 
The  window  must  have  us  to  itself,  as  in  the  rich  quiet 
of  a  cathedral  aisle. 

We  will  conclude  this  outside  consideration  of  win- 
dows (for  we  must  have  another  and  longer  one  for 
the  inside)  by  dropping  from  a  very  heavenly  to  a  very 
earthly  pi6lure,  though  it  be  one  still  suspended  in  the 
air.  It  is  that  of  the  gallant  footman,  in  one  of  Steele's 
comedies,  making  love  to  the  maid-sen'ant,  while  they 


WINDOWS.  45 

are  both  occupied  in  cleaning  the  windows  of  their 
master's  house.  He  does  not  make  love  as  his  honest- 
hearted  brother  Dodsley  would  have  done  (who  from 
a  footman  became  a  man  of  letters)  ;  still  less  in  the 
style  of  his  illustrious  broth'er  Rousseau  (for  he,  too, 
was  once  a  footman)  ;  though  there  is  one  passage  in 
the  incident,  which  the  ultra-sensitive  lackey  of  the 
"  Confessions  "  (who  afterwards  shook  the  earth  with 
the  very  strength  of  his  weakness)  would  have  turned 
to  fine  sentimental  account.  The  language  also  is  a 
little  too  good  even  for  a  fine  gentleman's  gentleman  : 
but  the  "exquisite"  airs  the  fellow  gives  himself  are 
■not  so  much  beyond  the  reach  of  brisk  footman-imita- 
tion as  not  to  have  an  essence  of  truth  in  them,  pleas- 
antly showing  the  natural  likeness  between  fops  of  all 
conditions  ;  and  they  are  as  happily  responded  to  by 
those  of  the  lady.  The  combination  of  the  unsophis- 
ticate  picture  at  the  close  of  the  extradl,  with  the  lan- 
guishing comment  made  upon  it,  is  extremely  ludi- 
crous. 

Enter  Tosr,  meeting  Phillis. 

Tom.  Well,  Phillis  !  What !  with  a  face  as  if  you 
had  never  seen  me  before  ?  What  a  work  have  I  to 
do  now !  She  has  seen  some  new  visitant  at  their 
house  whose  airs  she  has  catched,  and  is  resolved  to 
practise  them  upon  me.  Numberless  are  the  changes 
she'll  dance  through  before  she'll  answer  this  plain 
question  ;  videlictt^  Have  you  delivered  my  master's 
letter  to  your  lady  ?  Nay,  I  know  her  too  well  to  ask 
an  account  of  it  in  an  ordinary  way  :  I'll  be  in  my  airs 
as  well  as  she  {aside).  Well,  madam,  as  unhappy  as 
you  are  at  present  pleased  to  make  me,  I  would  not 


46  THE    SEER. 

in  the  genet'al  be  any  other  than  what  I  am  :  I  would 
not  be  a  bit  wiser,  a  bit  richer,  a  bit  taller,  a  bit  short- 
er, than  I  am  at  this  instant  {looking  steadfastly  at 
her). 

Phil.  Did  ever  anybody  doubt,  Master  Thomas, 
that  you  were  extremely  satisfied  with  your  sweet 
self? 

Tom.  I  am  indeed.  The  thing  I  have  least  reason 
to  be  satisfied  with  is  my  fortune  ;  and  I  am  glad  of  my 
poverty.  Perhaps,  if  I  were  rich,  I  should  overlook 
the  finest  woman  in  the  world,  that  wants  nothing  but 
riches  to  be  thought  so. 

Phil.  How  prettily  was  that  said !  But  I'll  have 
a  great  deal  more  before  I  say  one  word  {aside). 

Tom.  I  should  perhaps  have  been  stupidly  above 
her,  had  I  not  been  her  equal ;  and,  by  not  being  her 
equal,  never  had  an  opportunity  of  being  her  slave. 
I  am  my  master's  sei'vant  from  hire  :  I  am  my  mis- 
tress's sei"vant  from  choice,  would  she  but  approve  my 
passion. 

Phil.  I  think  it  is  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  you 
speak  of  it  with  any  sense  of  anguish,  if  you  really 
suffer  any. 

To7n.  Ah,  Phillis  !  can  you  doubt  after  what  you 
have  seen? 

Phil.  I  know  not  what  I  have  seen,  nor  what  I 
have  heard  ;  but,  since  I  am  at  leisure,  you  may  tell 
me  when  you  fell  in  love  with  me,  how  you  fell  in 
love  with  me,  and  what  you  have  suffered,  or  are 
ready  to  suffer,  for  me. 

Tom.  Oh !  the  unmerciful  jade !  when  I  am  in 
haste    about    my    master's    letter !      But    I    must    go 


wirjDOAvs.  47 

through  it  (aside).  Ah  !  too  well  I  remember  when, 
and  on  what  occasion,  and  how,  I  was  first  surprised. 
It  was  on  the  First  of  April,  one  thousand  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifteen,  I  came  into  Mr.  Sealand's  service :  I 
was  then  a  little  hobble-de-hoy,  and  you  a  little  tight 
girl,  a  favorite  handmaid  of  the  housekeeper.  At  that 
time,  Ave  neither  one  of  us  knew  what  was  in  us.  I 
remember  I  was  ordered  to  get  out  of  the  window,  one 
pair  of  stairs,  to  rub  the  sashes  clean  :  the  person 
employed  on  the  inner  side  was  your  charming  self, 
whom  I  had  never  seen  before. 

J^/ii'l.  I  think  I  remember  the  silly  accident.  What 
made  you,  you  oaf,  ready  to  fall  down  into  the  street? 

Tom.  You  know  not,  I  warrant  you  :  you  could 
not  gi.iess  what  surprised  me.  You  took  no  delight 
when  you  immediately  grew  wanton  in  your  conquest, 
and  put  your  lips  close,  and  breathed  upon  the  glass ; 
and,  when  my  lips  approached,  a  dirty  cloth  you 
rubbed  against  my  face,  and  hid  your  beauteous  form  : 
when  I  again  drew  near,  you  spit  and  rubbed,  afid 
smiled  at  my  undo  big. 


48 


WINDOWS,  CONSIDERED  FROM  INSIDE. 


HE  other  day,  a  butterfly  came  into  our  room, 
and  began  beating  himself  against  the  upper 
panes  of  a  window  half  open,  thinking  to  get 
back.  It  is  a  nice  point,  relieving  your  butterfly ; 
he  is  a  creature  so  delicate  !  If  you  handle  him  with- 
out ceremony,  you  bring  away  on  your  fingers  some- 
thing which  you  take  to  be  down,  but  which  is  plumes 
of  feathers ;  and  as  there  are  no  fairies  at  hand,  two 
atoms  high,  to  make  pens  of  the  quills,  and  write 
"articles"  on  the  invisible,  there  would  be  a  loss. 
Mr.  Bentham's  ghost  would  visit  us,  shaking  his  vene- 
rable locks  at  such  unnecessary-pain-producing  and 
reasonable-pleasure-preventing  heedlessness.  Then,  if 
you  brush  him  downwards,  you  stand  a  chance  of 
hurting  his  antennse,  or  feelers,  and  of  not  knowing 
what  mischief  you  may  do  to  his  eyes,  or  his  sense  of 
touch,  or  his  instruments  of  dialogue  ;  for  some  phi- 
losophers hold  that  inse6ts  talk  with  their  feelers,  as 
dumb  people  do  with  their  fingers.  However,  some 
suffering  must  be  hazarded  in  order  to  prevent  worse, 
even  to  the  least  and  most  delicate  of  Heaven's  crea- 
tures, who  would  not  know  pleasure  if  they  did  not 
know  pain  ;  and  perhaps,  the  merrier  and  happier  they 


WINDOWS,    CONSIDERED    FROM    INSIDE.  49 

are  in  general,  the  greater  the  lumps  of  pain  they  can 
bear.  Besides,  all  must  have  their  share,  or  how 
would  the  burden  of  the  great  blockish  necessity  be 
equally  distributed?  and,  finally,  what  business  had 
little  Papilio  to  come  into  a  place  unfit  for  him,  and 
get  bothering  himself  with  glass?  Oh,  faith!  —  your 
butterfly  must  learn  experience,  as  well  as  your  Bona- 
parte. 

There  was  he,  beating,  fluttering,  flouncing,  —  won- 
dering that  he  could  not  get  through  so  clear  a  matter 
(for  so  glass  appears  to  be  to  inserts,  as  well  as  to 
men),  and  tearing  his  silken  little  soul  out  with  inef- 
fedlual  energy.  What  plumage  he  must  have  left 
upon  the  pane !  what  feathers  and  colors,  strewed 
about,  as  if  some  fine  lady  had  gone  mad  against  a 
ball-room  door  for  not  being  let  in  ! 

But  we  had  a  higher  simile  for  him  than  that, 
"  Truly,"  thought  we,  "little  friend,  thou  art  like  some 
of  the  great  German  transcendentalists,  who,  in  think- 
ing to  reach  at  heaven  by  an  impossible  way  (such  at 
least  it  seemeth  at  present),  run  the  hazard  of  cracking 
their  brains,  and  spoiling  their  wings  for  ever  ;  where- 
as, if  thou  and  they  would  but  stoop  a  little  lower,  and 
begin  with  earth  first,  there,  before  thee,  lieth  open 
heaven  as  well  as  earth  ;  and  thou  mayest  mount  high 
as  thou  wilt,  after  thy  own  happy  fashion,  thinking 
less,  and  enjoying  all  things." 

And  hereupon  we  contrived  to  get  him  downwards  ; 
and  forth,  out  into  the  air,  sprang  he,  —  first  against 
the  lime-trees,  and  then  over  them  into  the  blue  ether, 
—  as  if  he  had  resolved  to  put  our  advice  into  prac- 
tice. 

5 


50  THE    SEER. 

We  have  before  spoken  of  the  fret  and  fury  into 
which  the  common  fly  seems  to  put  himself  against  a 
window.  Bees  appear  to  take  it  more  patiently,  out 
of  a  greater  knowledge  ;  and  slip  about  with  a  strange 
air  of  hopelessness.  They  seem  to  "  give  it  up." 
These  things,  as  Mr.  Pepys  said  of  the  humanities  at 
court,  "  it  is  pretty  to  obsei-ve."  Glass  itself  is  a  phe- 
nomenon that  might  alone  sen'e  a  reflecting  observ^er 
with  meditation  for  a  whole  morning,  —  so  substantial, 
and  yet  so  air-like  ;  so  close  and  compadt  to  keep  away 
the  cold,  yet  so  transparent  and  facile  to  let  in  light, 
the  gentlest  of  all  things ;  so  palpably  somethings  and 
}'et  to  the  eye  and  the  perceptions  a  kind  of  nothing  I 
It  seems  absolutely  to  deceive  insects  in  this  respect ; 
which  is  remarkable,  considering  how  closely  they 
handle  it,  and  what  microscopic  eyes  we  suppose  them 
to  have.  We  should  doubt  (as  we  used  to  do)  whether 
we  did  not  mistake  their  ideas  on  the  subje(5l,  if  we 
had  not  so  often  seen  their  repeated  dashings  of  them- 
selves against  the  panes,  their  stoppings  (as  if  to  take 
breath),  and  then  their  recommencement  of  the  same 
violence.  It  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  they  do  this  for 
mere  pleasure  ;  for  it  looks  as  if  they  must  hurt  them- 
selves. Observe  in  particular  the  tremendous  thumps 
given  himself  by  that  great  hulking  fellow  of  a  fly,  that 
Ajax  of  the  Diptera,  the  blue-bottle.  Yet  in  autumn,  in 
their  old  age,  flies  congregate  in  windows  as  elsewhere, 
and  will  take  the  matter  so  quietly  as  sometimes  to 
stand  still  for  hours  together.  We  suppose  they  love 
the  warmth,  or  the  light ;  and  that  either  they  have 
found  out  the  secret  as  to  the  rest,  or  — 

"Years  liave  brought  the  philosophic  mind." 


WINDOWS,    CONSIDERED    FROM    INSIDE.  5I 

Why  should  Fly  plague  himself  any  longer  with 
household  matters  which  he  cannot  alter?  He  has 
tried  hard  in  his  time  ;  and  now  he  resigns  himself 
like  a  wise  insect,  and  will  taste  whatsoever  tranquil 
pleasures  remain  for  him,  without  beating  his  brains 
or  losing  his  temper  any  longer.  In  natural  livers, 
pleasure  sui-\'ives  pain.  Even  the  artificial,  who  keep 
up  their  troubles  so  long  by  pride,  self-will,  and  the 
want  of  stimulants,  contrive  to  get  more  pleasure  than 
is  supposed  out  of  pain  itself,  especially  by  means  of 
thinking  themselves  ill  used  and  of  gi-umbling.  If  the 
heart  (for  want  of  better  training)  does  not  much  keep 
up  its  a6tion  with  them,  the  spleen  does  ;  and  so  there 
is  adlion  of  some  sort :  and,  whenever  there  is  action, 
there  is  life  ;  and  life  is  found  to  have  something  valu- 
able in  it  for  its  own  sake,  apart  from  ordinary  conside- 
rations either  of  pain  or  pleasure.  But  your  fly  and 
your  philosopher  are  for  pleasure  too,  to  the  last,  if  it 
be  harmless.  Give  old  JVIusca  a  grain  of  sugar,  and 
see  how  he  will  put  down  his  proboscis  to  it,  and  dot 
and  pound,  and  suck  it  in,  and  be  as  happy  as  an  old 
West-India  gentleman  pondering  on  his  sugar-cane, 
and  extra6ling  a  pleasure  out  of  some  dulcet  recollec- 
tion ! 

Gamblers,  for  want  of  a  sensation,  have  been  known 
to  start  up  from  their  wine,  and  lay  a  bet  upon  two 
raindrops  coming  down  a  pane  of  glass.  How  poor 
are  those  gentry,  even  when  they  win,  compared  with 
obsei-vers  whose  resources  need  never  fail  them  !  To 
the  latter,  if  they  please,  the  raindrop  itself  is  a  world, 
—  a  world  of  beauty  and  mystery  and  aboriginal  idea, 
bringing  before  them  a  thousand  images  of  proportion 


52  THE    SEER. 

and  refledlion,  and  the  elements,  and  light  and  color, 
and  roundness  and  delicacy  and  fluency,  and  benefi- 
cence, and  the  refreshed  flowers,  and  the  growing 
corn,  and  dewdrops  on  the  bushes,  and  the  tears 
that  fall  from  gentle  eyes,  and  the  ocean,  and  the 
rainbow,  and  the  origin  of  all  things.  In  water,  we 
behold  one  of  the  old  primeval  mysteries  of  which 
the  world  was  made.  Thus  the  commonest  raindrop 
on  a  pane  of  glass  becomes  a  visitor  from  the  solitudes 
of  time. 

A  window,  to  those  who  have  read  a  little  in  Na- 
ture's school,  tlius  becomes  a  book  or  a  pi(5lure,  on 
which  her  genius  may  be  studied,  handicraft  though 
the  canvas  be,  and  little  as  the  glazier  may  have 
thought  of  it.  Not  that  we  are  to  predicate  ignorance 
of  your  glazier  now-a-days,  any  more  than  of  other 
classes  that  compose  the  various  readers  of  penny  and 
three-half-penny  philosophy,  —  cheap  visitor,  like  the 
sunbeams,  of  houses  of  all  sorts.  The  glazier  could 
probably  give  many  a  incher  man  information  respect- 
ing his  glass,  and  his  diamond,  and  his  putty  (no  anti- 
climax in  these  analytical  days),  and  let  him  into  a 
secret  or  two,  besides,  respecting  the  amusement  to  be 
derived  from  it.  (We  have  just  got  up  from  our 
work  to  inform  ourselves  of  the  nature  and  properties 
of  the  said  mystery,  putty ;  and  should  blush  for  the 
confession,  if  the  blush  would  not  imply  that  a  similar 
ignorance  were  less  common  with  us  than  it  is.) 

But  a  window  is  a  frame  for  other  pidtures  besides 
its  own  ;  sometimes  for  moving  ones,  as  in  the  instance 
of  a  cloud  going  along,  or  a  bird,  or  a  flash  of  light- 
ning ;  sometimes  for  the  distant  landscape,  sometimes 


WINDOWS,    CONSIDERED    FROM    INSIDE.  tJ3 

the  nearer  one,  or  the  trees  that  are  close  to  it  with 
their  lights  and  shades  ;    often  for  the  i:)assing  multi- 
tude.    A  picture,  a  harmony,  is  obsen'able,  even   in 
the  drapery  of  the  curtains  that  invest  it ;   much  more 
in  the  sunny  vine-leaves  or  roses  that  may  be  visible 
on  the  borders,  or  that  are  trailed  against  it,  and  which 
render  many  a  poor  casement  so  pleasant.     The  other 
day,  in  a  -ver}-  humble  cottage-window  in  the  suburbs, 
we  saw  that  beautiful  plant,  the  nasturtium,   trained 
over  it  on  several  strings  ;  which  must  have  furnished 
the  inmates  with  a  screen  as  they  sate  at  their  work 
or  at  their  tea  inside,  and  at  the  same  time  permitted 
them  to  see  through  into  the  road  ;  thus  constitutinor  a 
far  better  blind   than   is  to  be   found   in   many  great 
houses.     Sights  like  these  give  a  favorable  impression 
of  the  dispositions  and  habits  of  the  people  within, — 
show  how  superior  they  are  to  their  sophistications,  if 
rich  ;  and  how^  possessed  of  natural  refinement,  if  among 
the  poorer  classes.     Oh  !    the  human   mind   is   a   fine 
gi-aceful  thing  everywhere,  if  the  music  of  Nature  does 
but  seize  its  attention,   and  throw  it  into   its   natural 
attitude.     But   so   little    has    the    "schoolmaster"   yet 
got  hold  of  this  point,  or  made  way  witli  it,  and  so 
occupied  are  men  with  digging  gold  out  of  the  ground, 
and    negle6ling   the    other  treasures  which    they  toss 
about  in  profusion  during  the  operation  (as  if  the  clay 
were  better  than  the  flowers  which  it  produced),  that 
few  make  the  most  of  the   means  and   appliances  for 
enjoyment  that  lie   round   about  them,  even   in   tlicir 
very  walls  and  rooms.     Look  at  the  windows  down  a 
street,   and,  generally  speaking,   they   are  all  barren. 
The  inmates  might  see  through  roses  and  geraniums. 


54  THE    SEER. 

if  they  would  ;  but  they  do  not  think  of  it,  or  not  with 
lovinsr  knowledsre  enousfli  to  take  the  trouble.  Those 
who  have  the  advantage  of  living  in  the  country  or  the 
suburbs  are  led  in  many  instances  to  do  better,  though 
their  necessity  for  agreeable  sights  is  not  so  great. 
But  the  presence  of  Nature  tempts  them  to  imitate  her. 
There  are  few  windows  anywhere  which  might  not  be 
used  to  better  advantage  than  they  are,  if  we  have  a 
little  money,  or  can  procure  even  a  few  seeds.  We 
have  read  an  art  of  blowing  the  fire.  There  is  an  art 
even  in  the  shutting  and  opening  of  windows.  People 
might  close  them  more  against  dull  objects,  and  open 
them  more  to  pleasant  ones  and  to  the  air.  For  a 
few  pence  they  might  have  beautiful  colors  and  odors, 
and  a  pleasing  task,  emulous  of  the  showers  of  April, 
beneficent  as  May :  for  they  who  cultivate  flowers  in 
their  windows  (as  we  have  hinted  before)  are  led  in- 
stin6tively  to  cultivate  them  for  others  as  well  as  them- 
selves ;  nay,  in  one  respeft,  they  do  it  more  so  ;  for 
you  may  observe,  that,  wherever  there  is  this  "  fenestral 
horticulture  "  (as  Evelyn  would  have  called  your  win- 
dow-gardening), the  flowers  are  turned  with  their 
faces  towards  the  street. 

But  "  there  is  an  art  in  the  shutting  and  opening  of 
windows."  Yes,  for  the  sake  of  air  (which  ought  to 
be  had  night  as  well  as  day,  in  reasonable  measure, 
and  with  precautions),  and  for  the  sake  of  excluding 
or  admitting  what  is  to  be  seen  out  of  doors.  Suppose, 
for  example,  a  house  is  partly  opposite  some  pleasant, 
and  partlv  some  unpleasant,  object :  the  one,  a  tree  or 
garden  ;  the  other,  a  gin-shop  or  a  squalid  lane.  The 
sight  of  the  first  should  be  admitted  as  constantly  as 


"WINDOWS,    CONSIDERED    FROM    INSIDK.  55 

possible,  and  with  open  window.  That  of  tlic  other, 
if  you  are  rich  enough,  can  be  shut  out  with  a  painted 
bHnd,  that  shall  substitute  a  beautiful  landscape  for  the 
nuisance  ;  or  a  blind  of  another  sort  will  serve  the  pur- 
pose ;  or,  if  even  a  blind  cannot  be  aftbrded,  the  shutters 
may  be  partly  closed.  Shutters  should  always  be  di- 
vided in  two,  horizontally  as  well  as  otherwise,  for 
purposes  of  this  kind.  It  is  sometimes  pleasant  to 
close  the  lower  portion,  if  only  to  presence  a  greater 
sense  of  quiet  and  seclusion,  and  to  read  or  write  the 
more  to  yourself;  light  from  above  having  both  a 
softer  and  stronger  eftecl  than  when  admitted  from  all 
quarters.  We  have  seen  shutters,  by  judicious  man- 
agement in  this  way,  in  the  house  of  a  poor  man  who 
had  a  taste  for  nature,  contribute  to  the  comfort  and 
even  elegance  of  a  room  in  a  surprising  manner,  and 
(by  the  opening  of  the  lower  portions  and  the  closure 
of  the  upper)  at  once  shut  out  all  the  sun  that  was  not 
v/antcd,  and  convert  a  row  of  stunted  trees  into  an 
appearance  of  interminable  foliage,  as  thick  as  if  it  had 
been  in  a  forest. 

"  But  the  fad  v^'as  othei"wise,"  cries  some  fastidious 
personage,  more  nice  than  wise :  "•  you  knew  there 
%vas  no  forest^  and  therefore  could  not  have  been  de- 
ceived." 

"Well,  mv  dear  sir,  but  deception  is  not  necessary 
to  every  one's  pleasure  ;  and  fad  is  not  merely  what 
you  take  it  for.  The  fa6l  of  there  being  no  forest 
might  have  been  the  onlv  f;ict  ^vith  yourself,  and  so 
have  prevented  the  enjoyment :  but,  to  a  livelier  fancy, 
there  would  have  been  the  fadt  of  the  imagination  of 
the  forest  (for  evcrv  thing  is  a  fa6l  which  docs  any  thing 


56  THE    SEER. 

for  us)  ;  *  and  there  would  also  have  been  the  fadl  of 
having  cultivated  the  imagination,  and  the  fadl  of  our 
willingness  to  be  pleased,  and  the  fa6t  of  the  books  we 
have  read,  and,  above  all,  the  fa6t  of  the  positive  satis- 
faftion.  If  a  man  be  pleased,  it  is  in  vain  you  tell  him 
he  has  no  cause  to  be  pleased.  The  cause  is  proved 
by  the  consequence.  Whether  the  cause  be  rightly  or 
wrongly  cultivated,  is  another  matter.  The  good  of  it 
is  assumed  in  the  present  instance  ;  and  it  would  take 
more  fa(5ls  than  are  in  the  possession  of  a  "  mere  mat- 
ter-of-fa6t  man"  to  disprove  it.  Matter  of  fa6l,  and 
spirit  of  fa6t,  must  both  be  appreciated,  in  order  to  do 
justice  to  the  riches  of  Nature.  We  are  made  of  mind 
as  well  as  body,. —  of  imagination  as  well  as  senses. 
The  sam.e  mysterious  faculty  v>^hich  sees  what  is  before 
the  eyes,  sees  also  what  is  suggested  to  the  memory. 
Matter  of  fadt  is  only  the  more  palpable  world,  around 
which  a  thousand  spirits  of  fa6t  are  playing,  like  angels 
in  a  pidlure.  Not  to  see  both  is  to  be  a  poor  unat- 
tended creatiu'e,  who  walks  about  in  the  world,  con- 
scious of  nothing  but  himself,  or  at  best  of  what  the 
horse-jockey  and  the  coach-maker  has  done  for  him. 
If  his  banker  fails,  he  is  ruined  !    Not  so  those,  who,  in 


*  Facio,  factum  (Latin),  —  "  to  do,"  "  done."  "What  is  done  in  imagi- 
nation makes  a  greater  or  less  impression  according  to  the  power  to 
receive  it:  but  it  is  unquestionably  done,  if  it  impresses  us  at  all:  and 
thus  becomes,  after  its  kind,  a  fact.  A  stupid  fellow,  utterly  without 
imagination,  requires  tickling  to  make  him  laugh:  a  livelier  one  laughs 
at  a  comedy,  or  at  the  bare  apprehension  of  a  thing  laughable.  In  both 
instances,  there  is  a  real  impression,  though  from  very  dilfcrent  causes,— 
one  from  "  matter  of  fact"  (if  you  please),  the  other  from  spirit  of  fact* 
but  in  either  case  the  thing  is  done,  the  fact  takes  place.  The  moving 
cause  exists  somehow,  or  how  could  we  be  moved  ? 


WINDOWS,    CONSIDERED    FROHI    INSIDE.  ^7 

addition  to  the  resources  of  their  industry,  have  stock 
in  all  the  banks  of  Nature  and  Art  (pardon  us  this  pun 
for  the  sake  of  what  grows  on  it),  and  whose  consola- 
tions cannot  wholly  fail  them,  as  long  as  they  have  a 
flower  to  look  upon,  and  a  blood  not  entirely  vitiated. 

A  window  high  up  in  a  building,  and  commanding 
a  fine  prospe(5l,  is  a  sort  of  looking-out  of  the  air,  and 
gives  a  sense  of  power,  and  of  superiority  to  earth. 
The  higher  also  you  go,  the  healthier.     We  speak  of 
such  windows  as  Milton  fancied,  when  he  wished  that 
his  lamp  should  be  seen  at  midnight  in  "  some  high 
lonely  tower ; "  a  passage  justly  admired  for  the  good- 
nature as  well  as  loftiness  of  the  wish  ;  thus  desiring- 
that  wayfarers  should  be  the  better  for  his  studies,  and 
enjoy  the  evidence  of  their  fellow-creature's  vigils.     But 
elevations  of  this  kind  are  not  readily  to  be  had.     As 
to  health,  we  believe  that  a  very  little  lift  above  the 
ground-floor,  and  so  on  as  you  ascend,  grows  healthier 
in  proportion.     Malaria  (bad    air),  in  the    countries 
where  a  plague  of  that  kind  is  prevalent,  is  understood 
to  be  confined  to  a  certain  distance  from  the  earth  ; 
and  we  really  believe,  that  even  in  the  healthiest  quar- 
ters, where  no  positive  harm  is  done  by  nearness  to  it, 
the  air  is  better  as  the  houses  ascend,  and  a  seat  in  a 
window  becomes  valuable  in  proportion.     By  and  by, 
perhaps,  studies  and  other  favorite  sitting-rooms  will 
be  built  accordingl}',  and  more  retrospective  reverence 
be  shown  to  the  "garrets"  that  used  to  be  so  famous 
in  the  annals  of  authorship.     The  poor  poet  in  Pope, 
who  lay  — 

"  High  in  Drury  lano, 
Liillcd  by  poft  zephyrs  through  the  broken  pine,"  — 


58  THE    SEER. 

was  better  off  there  than  if  he  had  occupied  the 
ground-floor.  For  our  parts,  in  order  that  we  may 
save  the  dignity  of  our  three-halfpenny  meditations, 
and  at  the  same  time  give  evidence  of  practising  what 
we  preach,  we  shall  finish  by  stating,  that  we  have 
written  this  article  in  a  floor  neither  high  enough  to  be 
so  poetical,  nor  low  enough  for  too  earthly  a  prose, — 
in  a  little  study  made  healthy  by  an  open  window,  and 
partly  screened  from  over-lookers  by  a  bit  of  the  shut- 
ter ;  while  our  lookout  presents  us  with  a  world  of 
green  leaves,  and  a  red  cottage-top,  a  Gothic  tower 
of  a  church  in  the  distance,  and  a  glorious  apple-tree 
close  at  hand,  laden  with  its  yellow  balls,  — 

"  Studded  with  apples,  a  beautiful  show." 

Some  kindness  of  this  sort.  Fortune  has  never  failed  to 
presei'v^e  to  us,  as  if  in  return  for  the  love  we  bear  to 
her  rolling  globe  ;  and,  now  that  the  sincerity  of  our 
good-will  has  become  known,  none  seem  inclined  to 
grudge  it  us,  or  to  dispute  the  account  to  which  we 
may  tumi  it,  for  others  as  well  as  ourselves. 

We  had  something  more  to  say  of  seats  in  windows, 
and  a  good  deal  of  windows  at  inns,  and  of  sitting  and 
looking  out  of  windows  ;  but  we  have  other  articles  to 
write  this  week,  of  more  length  than  usual,  and  must 
reserve  it  for  a  future  number. 


A  FLOWER  FOR  YOUR  WINDOW. 

Na77ies  of  Flowers.  —  Mystery  of  their  Beauty. 

jN  the  window  beside  which  we  are  writing 
this  article,  there  is  a  geranium  shining  with 

its  scarlet  tops  in  the  sun,  the  red  of  it  being 

the  more  red  for  a  background  of  lime-trees  which  are 
at  the  same  time  breathing  and  panting  like  airy  pleni- 
tudes of  joy,  and  developing  their  shifting  depths  of 
light  and  shade  of  russet  brown  and  sunny  inward 
gold. 

It  seems  to  say,  "  Paint  me  ! "     So  here  it  is. 

Every  now  and  then,  some  anxious  fly  comes  near 
it.  We  hear  the  sound  of  a  bee,  though  we  see  none  ; 
and,  upon  looking  closer  at  the  flowers,  we  observe 
that  some  of  the  petals  are  transparent  with  the  light, 
while  others  are  left  in  shade  ;  the  leaves  are  equally 
adorned,  after  their  opaquer  fashion,  with  those  efledls 
of  the  sky,  showing  their  dark-brown  rims ;  and  on 
one  of  them  a  red  petal  has  fallen,  where  it  lies  on  the 
brighter  half  of  the  shallow  green  cup,  making  its  own 
red  redder,  and  the  green  greener.  We  perceive,  in 
imagination,  the  scent  of  those  good-natured  leaves, 
which  allow  you  to  carry  oft'  their  perfume  on  your 
fingers ;    for  good-natured   they   are,   in   that   resped, 


6o  THE    SEER. 

above  almost  all  plants,  and  fittest  for  the  hospitalities 
of  your  rooms.  The  very  feel  of  the  leaf  has  a  house- 
hold warmth  in  it  something  analogous  to  clothing 
and  comfort. 

Why  does  not  everybody  (who  can  afford  it)  have 
a  geranium  in  liis  window,  or  some  other  flower? 
It  is  very  cheap  ;  its  cheapness  is  next  to  nothing, 
if  you  raise  it  from  seed  or  from  a  slip  ;  and  it  is 
a  beaut}'  and  a  companion.  It  sweetens  the  air, 
rejoices  the  eye,  links  you  with  nature  and  inno- 
cence, and  is  something  to  love.  And,  if  it  cannot 
love  you  in  return,  it  cannot  hate  you ;  it  cannot 
utter  a  hateful  thing,  even  for  your  neglecSling  it ;  for, 
though  it  is  all  beaut}',  it  has  no  vanity :  and  such 
being  the  case,  and  living  as  it  does  purely  to  do  you 
good  and  afford  you  pleasure,  how  will  you  be  able  to 
neglecSt  it? 

But  pray,  if  you  choose  a  geranium,  or  possess  but  a 
fev/  of  them,  let  us  persuade  you  to  choose  the  scarlet 
kind,  the  "old  original"  geranium,  and  not  a  variety 
of  it,  —  not  one  of  the  numerous  diversities  of  red  and 
white,  blue  and  white,  ivy-leaved,  &c.  Those  are  all 
beautiful,  and  very  fit  to  vary  a  large  colle6tion  ;  but 
to  prefer  them  to  the  originals  of  the  race  is  to  run  the 
hazard  of  preferring  the  curious  to  the  beautiful,  and 
costliness  to  sound  taste.  It  may  be  taken  as  a  good 
general  rule,  that  the  most  popular  plants  are  the  best ; 
for  otherwise  they  would  not  have  become  such.  And 
what  the  painters  call  "pure  colors"  are  preferable  to 
mixed  ones,  for  reasons  which  Nature  herself  has 
given  when  she  painted  the  sky  of  one  color,  and  the 
fields  of  another,  and  divided  the  rainbow  itself  into  a 


A    FI.OWER    FOR    YOUR    WINDOW.  6l 

few  clistin6l  hues,  and  made  die  red  rose  the  queen  of 
flowers.  Variations  of  flowers  are  like  variations  in 
music,  often  beautiful  as  such,  but  almost  always  in- 
ferior to  the  theme  on  wdiich  they  are  founded, — the 
original  air.  And  the  rule  holds  good  in  beds  of 
flowers,  if  they  be  not  very  large,  or  in  any  other  small 
assemblage  of  them.  Nay,  the  largest  bed  will  look 
well,  if  of  one  beautiful  color ;  while  the  most  beauti- 
ful varieties  may  be  inharmoniously  mixed  up.  Con- 
trast is  a  good  thing :  but  we  should  first  get  a  good 
sense  of  the  thing  to  be  contrasted  ;  and  we  shall  find 
this  preferable  to  the  contrast,  if  we  are  not  rich  enough 
to  have  both  in  due  measure.  We  do  not,  in  general, 
love  and  honor  any  one  single  color  enough  ;  and  we 
are  instindlively  struck  with  a  conviction  to  this  efte6l 
when  we  see  it  abundantly  set  forth.  The  other  day, 
we  saw  a  little  garden-wall  completely  covered  with 
nasturtiums,  and  felt  how  much  more  beautiful  it  was 
than  if  any  thing  had  been  mixed  with  it.  For  the 
leaves,  and  the  light  and  shade,  ofler  variety  enough  : 
the  rest  is  all  richness  and  simplicity  united,  which 
is  the  triumph  of  an  intense  perception.  Embower  a 
cottage  thickly  and  completely  with  nothing  but  roses, 
and  nobody  would  desire  the  interference  of  another 
plant. 

Every  thing  is  handsome  about  the  geranium,  not 
excepting  its  name  ;  which  cannot  be  said  of  all  flow- 
ers, though  we  get  to  love  ugly  words  when  associated 
with  pleasing  ideas.  The  word  "  geranium  "  is  soft 
and  elegant :  the  meaning  is  poor  ;  for  it  comes  from  a 
Greek  word  signifying  a  crane,  the  fruit  having  a  form 
resembling  that  of  a  crane's  head  or  bill.     Crane's  bill 


63 


THE    SEER. 


is  the  English  name  of  geranium  ;  though  the  learned 
appellation  has  superseded  the  vernacular.  But  what 
a  reason  for  naming  the  Jlozver  !  as  if  the  fruit  were 
any  thing  in  comj^arison,  or  any  one  cared  about  it. 
Such  distinctions,  it  is  true,  are  useful  to  botanists ; 
but,  as  plenty  of  learned  names  are  sure  to  be  reserved 
for  the  free-masonry  of  the  science,  it  would  be  better 
for  the  world  at  large  to  invent  joyous  and  beautiful 
names  for  these  images  of  jo}-  and  beauty.  In  some 
instances,  we  have  them  ;  such  as  heart's-ease,  honey- 
suckle, marigold,  mignonette  (little  darling),  daisy 
(day's-eye),  &c.  And  many  flowers  are  so  lovely,  and 
have  associated  names  otherwise  unmeaning  so  joleas- 
antly  with  one's  memory,  that  no  new  ones  would 
sound  so  well,  or  seem  even  to  have  such  proper  sig- 
nifications. In  pronouncing  the  words  lilies,  roses, 
pinks,  tulips,  jonquils,  we  see  the  things  themselves, 
and  seem  to  taste  all  their  beautv  and  sweetness. 
"Pink"  is  a  harsh  petty  word  in  itself;  and  yet  as- 
suredly it  does  not  seem  so  ;  for  in  the  word  we  have 
the  flower.  It  would  be  difficult  to  persuade  ourselves 
that  the  word  "  rose  "  is  not  very  beautiful.  "  Pea."  is  a 
poor  Chinese-like  monosyllable  ;  and  "  brier"  is  rough 
and  fierce,  as  it  ought  to  be :  but,  when  we  think  of 
"  sweet-pea"  and  "  sweet-brier,"  the  words  appear  quite 
worthy  of  their  epithets.  The  poor  monosyllable  be- 
comes rich  in  sweetness  and  appropriation  ;  the  rough 
dissyllable  also  ;  and  the  sweeter  for  its  contrast.  But 
what  can  be  said  in  behalf  of  liverwort,  bloodwort, 
dragon' s-head,  devil's-bit,  and  devil-in-a-bush  ?  There 
was  a  charming  line  in  some  verses  in  last  week's 
"•  London  Journal,"  written  by  a  lady  :  — 


A    FLOWER    FOR    YOUR    WINDOW.  63 

"  I've  marred  your  blisses, 

Those  sweete  Idsses 
That  the  young  breeze  so  loved  yesterdaye  ! 

I've  seen  ye  sighing, 

Now  ye're  dying : 
How  could  I  take  your  prettie  lives  away  ?  " 

But  you  could  not  say  this  to  dragon' s-head  and  devil's- 
bit :  — 

"  0  dragon's-head,  devil's-bit,  bloodwort !  say, 
How  could  I  take  your  pretty  lives  away  1 " 

This  would  be  like  Dryden's  version  of  the  pig-squeak- 
ing in  Chaucer :  — 

"  Poor  swine  !  as  if  their  pretty  hearts  would  break." 

The  names  of  flowers  in  general  among  the  polite  are 
neither  pretty  in  themselves,  nor  give  us  information. 
The  country  people  are  apt  to  do  them  more  justice. 
Goldy-locks,  ladies'-fingers,  bright-eye,  rose-a-rubie, 
shepherd's-clock,  shepherd's-purse,  sauce-alone,  scarlet- 
runners,  sops-in-wine,  sweet-william,  &c.,  give  us  some 
ideas  either  useful  or  pleasant.  But  from  the  peasantry 
also  come  many  uncongenial  names,  as  bad  as  those  of 
the  botanists.  Some  of  the  latter  are  handsome  as  well 
as  learned,  have  meanings  easily  found  out  by  a  little 
reading  or  scholarship,  and  are  taking  their  place  ac- 
cordingly in  popular  nomenclatures ;  as  amaranth, 
adonis,  arbutus,  asphodel,  &c. :  but  many  others  are  as 
ugly  as  they  are  far-fetched  ;  such  as  colchicum,  tagetcs, 
yucca,  ixia,  mesembryanthemum  ;  and  as  to  the  Adan- 
sonias,  Browallias,  Koempferias,  John  Tomkinsias,  or 
whatever  the  personal  names  may  be  that  are  bestowed 


64  THE    SEER. 

at  the  botanical  font  by  their  proud  discoverers  or  god- 
fathers, we  have  a  respeft  for  botanists  and  their  pur- 
suits, and  wish  them  all  sorts  of  "little  immortalities" 
except  these  ;  unless  they  could  unite  them  with  some- 
thing illustrative  of  the  flower  as  well  as  themselves. 
A  few,  certainly,  we  should  not  like  to  displace  ;  Brow- 
allia  for  one,  which  was  given  to  a  Peruvian  flower 
by  Linnaeus,  in  honor  of  a  friend  of  his  of  the  name  of 
Browall :  but  the  name  should  have  included  some 
idea  of  the  thing  named.  The  Browallia  is  remarkable 
for  its  brilliancy.  "  We  cannot,"  says  Mr.  Cui'tis,  "  do 
it  justice  by  any  colors  we  have."  *  Now,  why  not 
have  called  it  Browall's  Beauty?  or  Browall's  Inimi- 
table ?  The  other  day  we  were  ad?7iiring  an  enormous- 
ly beautiful  apple,  and  were  told  it  was  called  "  Kirk's 
Admirable"  after  the  gardener  who  raised  it.  We  felt 
the  propriety  of  this  name  directly.  It  was  altogether 
to  the  purpose.  There  was  use  and  beauty  together,  — 
the  name  of  the  raiser,  and  the  excellence  of  the  fruit 
raised.  It  is  a  pity  that  all  fruits  and  flowers,  and 
animals  too,  except  those  with  good  names,  could  not 
be  passed  in  review  before  somebody  with  a  genius  for 
christening,  as  the  creatures  did  before  Adam  in  Para- 
dise, and  so  have  new  names  given  them  worthy  of 
their  creation. 

Suppose  flowers  themselves  were  new.  Suppose 
they  had  just  come  into  the  world,  a  sweet  reward  for 
some  new  goodness  ;  and  that  we  had  not  yet  seen 
them  quite  developed  ;  that  they  were  in  the  a<5t  of 
growing ;    had  just  issued  with  their  green  stalks  out 

*  We  learn  this  from  the  "  Flora  Domestica,"  an  elegant  and  poetry- 
loving  book,  pgecially  intended  for  cultivators  of  flowers  at  home. 


A    FLOWER    FOR    YOUR    WINDOW.  65 

of  the  ground,  and  engaged  the  attention  of  the  curious. 
Imagine  what  we  should  feel  when  we  saw  the  first 
lateral  stem  bearing  off  from  the  main  one,  or  putting 
forth  a  leaf.  How  we  should  watch  the  leaf  gradually 
unfolding  its  little  graceful  hand  ;  then  another,  then 
another ;  then  the  main  stalk  rising,  and  producing 
more  ;  then  one  of  them  giving  indications  of  an  aston- 
ishing novelty,  a  bud  !  then  this  mysterious,  lovely  bud 
gradually  unfolding  like  the  leaf,  amazing  us,  enchant- 
ing us,  almost  alarming  us  with  delight,  as  if  we  knew 
not  what  enchantment  were  to  ensue  ;  till  at  length,  in 
ail  its  fairy  beauty,  and  odorous  voluptuousness,  and 
mysterious  elaboration  of  tender  and  living  scuIjDture, 
shone  forth  — 

"  The  bright  consummate  flower ! " 

Yet  this  phenomenon,  to  a  mind  of  any  thought  and 
lovingness,  is  what  may  be  said  to  take  place  every 
day ;  for  the  cominonest  objects  are  only  wonders  at 
which  habit  has  made  us  cease  to  wonder,  and  the 
mai-\'ellousness  of  which  we  may  renew  at  pleasure 
by  taking  thought.  Last  spring,  walking  near  some 
cultivated  grounds,  and  seeing  a  multitude  of  green 
stalks  peeping  forth,  we  amused  ourselves  with  liken- 
ing them  to  the  plumes  or  other  head-gear  of  fairies, 
and  wondering  what  faces  might  ensue  :  and,  from  this 
exercise  of  the  fancy,  we  fell  to  considering  how  true, 
and  not  merely  fanciful,  those  speculations  were  ;  what 
a  perpetual  reprodudlion  of  the  marvellous  was  carried 
on  by  Nature  ;  how  utterly  ignorant  we  were  of  the 
causes  of  the  least  and  most  disesteemed  of  the  com- 
monest vegetables ;    and  what  a  quantit}'  of  life   and 

VOL.    I.  6 


66  THE    SEER. 

beauty  and  mystery  and  use  and  enjoyment  was  to  be 
found  in  tliem,  composed  out  of  all  sorts  of  elements, 
and  shaped  as  if  by  the  hands  of  fairies.  What  work- 
manship, with  no  apparent  workman !  What  con- 
summate elegance,  though  the  result  was  to  be  nothing 
(as  we  call  it)  but  a  radish  or  an  onion,  and  these 
were  to  be  consumed,  or  thrown  away  by  millions  ! 
A  rough  tree  grows  up,  and  at  the  tips  of  his  rugged 
and  dark  fingers  he  puts  forth  —  round,  smooth,  shin- 
ing, and  hanging  delicately  —  the  golden  apple,  or 
the  cheek-like  beauty  of  the  peach.  The  other  day, 
we  were  in  a  garden  where  Indian  corn  was  growing ; 
and  some  of  the  cobs  were  plucked  to  show  us.  First 
one  leaf  or  sheath  was  picked  off,  then  another,  then 
another,  then  a  fourth,  and  so  on,  as  if  a  fruit-seller 
was  unpacking  fruit  out  of  papers  ;  and  at  last  we 
came,  inside,  to  the  grains  of  the  corn,  packed  up  into 
cucumber-shapes  of  pale  gold,  and  each  of  them  pressed 
and  flattened  against  each  other,  as  if  some  human 
hand  had  been  doing  it  in  the  caverns  of  the  earth. 
But  what  Hand  ! 

The  same  that  made  the  poor  yet  rich  hand  (for  is  it 
not  his  workmanship  also  ?)  that  is  tracing  these  mar- 
velling lines,  and  which  if  it  does  not  tremble  to  write 
them,  it  is  because  Love  sustains,  and  because  the 
heart  also  is  a  flower  which  has  a  right  to  be  tranquil  in 
the  garden  of  the  All-wise. 


67 


A  WORD   ON  EARLY  RISING. 


\ 
S  we  are  writing  this  article  before  breakf;ist, 
at  an  earlier  hour  than  usual,  we  are  inclined 
to  become  grand  and  intolerant  on  the 
strength  of  our  virtue,  and  to  look  around  us,  and  say, 
"Why  is  not  everybody  up?  Hoav  catt  people  lie  in 
bed  at  an  hour  like  this,  —  '  the  cool,  the  fragrant '  ?  " 

"  Falsely  luxurious,  will  not  man  awake  ?  " 

Thus  exclaimed  good-natured,  enjoying  Thomson,  and 
lay  in  bed  till  twelve  ;  after  which  he  strolled  into  his 
garden  at  Richmond,  and  ate  peaches  off  a  tree,  with 
his  hands  in  his  waistcoat  -  pockets  !  Browsing!  A 
perfect  specimen  of  a  poetical  elephant  or  rhinoceros ! 
Thomson,  however,  left  an  immortal  book  behind  him, 
which  excused  his  trespasses.  What  excuse  shall 
mortality  bring  for  hastening  its  end  by  lying  in  bed, 
and  anticipating  the  grave?  for,  of  all  apparently  inno- 
cent habits,  lying  in  bed  is  perhaps  the  worst ;  while, 
on  the  other  hand,  amidst  all  the  different  habits 
through  which  peojole  have  attained  to  a  long  life,  it  is 
said  that  in  this  one  respedt,  and  this  only,  they  have  all 
agreed^  —  no  very  long-lived  man  has  been  a  late  riser  ! 
Judge  Holt  is  said  to  have  been  curious  respedting 
longevity,  and  to  have  questioned  every  very  old  man 
tliat  came  before  him,  as  to  his  modes  of  living ;    and 


68  THE   SEER. 

in  the  matter  of  early  rising  there  was  no  variation : 
every  one  of  them  got  up  betimes.  One  lived  chiefly 
upon  meat,  another  upon  vegetables  ;  one  drank  no 
fermented  liquors,  another  did  drink  them ;  a  iifth 
took  care  not  to  expose  himself  to  the  weather,  another 
took  no  such  care  :  but  every  one  of  them  was  an  early 
riser.  All  made  their  appearance  at  Nature's  earliest 
levee  ;  and  she  was  pleased  that  they  hailed  her  as  soon 
as  she  waked,  and  that  they  valued  her  fresh  air,  and 
valued  her  skies,  and  her  birds,  and  her  balmy  quiet : 
or,  if  they  thought  little  of  this,  she  was  pleased  that 
they  took  the  first  step  in  life,  every  day,  calculated  to 
make  them  happiest  and  most  healthy ;  and  so  she 
laid  her  hands  upon  their  heads,  and  pronounced  them 
good  old  boys,  and  enabled  them  to  run  about  at 
wonderful  ages,  while  their  jDOor  senior  juniors  were 
tumbling  in  down  and  gout. 

A  most  pleasant  hour  it  is  certainly,  —  when  you 
are  once  up.  The  birds  are  singing  in  the  trees ;  ev- 
ery thing  else  is  noiseless,  except  the  air,  which  comes 
sweeping  every  now  and  then  through  the  sunshine, 
hindering  the  coming  day  from  being  hot.  We  feel  it 
on  our  face  as  we  write.  At  a  distance,  far  oft',  a  dog 
occasionally  barks ;  and  some  huge  fly  is  loud  upon 
the  window-pane.  It  is  sweet  to  drink  in  at  one's  ears 
these  innocent  sounds,  and  this  very  sense  of  silence, 
and  to  say  to  one's  self,  "  We  are  up,  we  are  up, 
and  are  doing  well :  the  beautiful  creation  is  not 
unseen  and  unheard  for  want  of  7is"  Oh  !  it's  a  pro- 
digious moment  when  the  vanity  and  the  viitue  can  go 
together.  We  shall  not  say  how  early  we  write  this 
article,  lest  we  should  appear  immodest,   and   excite 


A   WORD    ON   EARLY   RISING.  69 

envy  and  despair.  Neither  shall  we  mention  how 
often  we  thus  get  up,  or  the  hour  at  which  we  gene- 
rally rise,  —  leaving  our  readers  to  hope  the  best  of  us  ; 
in  return  for  which,  we  will  try  to  be  as  little  exalted 
this  morning  as  the  sense  of  advantage  over  our  neigh- 
bors will  permit,  and  not  despise  them,  —  a  great 
stretch  for  an  uncommon  sense  of  merit.  There,  for 
instance,  is  C,  —  hard  at  it,  we  would  swear;  as  fast 
asleep  as  a  church.  Of  what  value  are  his  books  now, 
and  his  subtleties,  and  his  speculations  ?  as  dead,  poor 
man  !  as  if  they  never  existed.  What  proof  is  there  of 
an  immortal  soul  in  that  face  with  its  eyes  shut,  and  its 
mouth  open,  and  not  a  word  to  say  for  itself,  any  more 
than  the  dog's?  And  W.  thei'e,  —  what  signifies  his 
love  for  his  children  and  his  garden,  neither  of  which 
he  is  now  alive  to,  though  the  child-like  birds  are  call- 
ing him,  hopping  amidst  their  songs ;  and  his  break- 
fast would  have  twice  the  relish?  And  the  L.'s  with 
their  garden  and  their  music  ?  —  the  orchard  has  all  the 
music  to  itself:  they  will  not  arise  to  join  it,  though 
Nature  manifestly  intends  concerts  to  be  of  a  morning 
as  well  as  evening,  and  the  animal  spirits  are  the 
first  that  are  up  in  the  universe. 

Then  the  streets  and  squares.  Very  much  do  we 
fear,  that,  for  want  of  a  proper  education  in  these 
thoughts,  the  milkman,  Instead  of  despising  all  these 
shut-up  windows,  and  the  sleeping  incapables  inside, 
envies  them  for  the  riches  that  keep  injuring  their  dia- 
phragms and  digestions,  and  that  will  render  their 
breakfast  not  half  so  good  as  his.  "  Call  you  these 
gentle-folks  ?  "  said  a  new  maid-servant,  in  a  family  of 
our  acquaintance :    "  why,   they   get  up   early   in   the 


7©  THE    SEER. 

morning  !     Only  make  me  a  lady,  and  see  if  I  wouldn't 
lie  abed." 

Seriously  speaking,  we  believe  that  there  is  not  a 
wholesomer  thing  than  early  rising,  or  one  which,  if 
persevered  in  for  a  ver}-  little  while,  would  make  a 
greater  difference  in  the  sensations  of  those  who  suffer 
from  most  causes  of  ill-health,  particularly  the  besetting 
disease  of  these  sedentary  times,  —  indigestion.  AVe 
believe  it  would  supersede  the  supposed  necessity'  of  a 
great  deal  of  nauseous  and  pernicious  medicine,  —  that 
pretended  friend,  and  ultimately  certain  foe,  of  all  im- 
patient stomachs.  Its  utilit}'^  in  other  respedls  every- 
body acknowledges,  though  few  profit  by  it  as  they 
might.  Nothing  renders  a  man  so  completely  master 
of  the  day  before  him  ;  so  gets  rid  of  arrears,  antici- 
pates the  necessity  of  haste,  and  insures  leisure.  Sir 
Walter  Scott  is  said  to  have  wu-itten  all  his  greatest 
works  before  breakfast :  he  thus  also  procured  time  for 
bcing  one  of  the  most  social  of  friends,  and  kind  and 
attentive  of  correspondents.  One  sometimes  regrets 
that  experience  passes  into  the  shape  of  provei'bs, 
since  those  who  make  use  of  them  are  apt  to  have  no 
other  knowledge,  and  thus  procure  for  them  a  worldly 
character  of  the  lowest  order,  Franklin  did  them  no 
good,  in  this  respe6l,  by  crowding  them  together  in 
"  Poor  Richard's  Almanack  ;  "  and  Cervantes  intimated 
the  commonplace  abuse  into  which  they  w^ere  turning, 
by  putting  them  into  the  mouth  of  Sancho  Panza. 
Swift  completed  the  ruin  of  some  of  them,  in  this 
covnitry,  by  mingling  them  with  the  slip-slop  of  his 
"Polite  Conversation,"  —  a  Tory  libel  on  the  talk  of 
tlie  upper  ranks,  to  which  nothing  comparable  is  to  be 


A    WORD    ON    EARLY    RISIXG.  ^I 

found  in  the  Whig  or  Radical  objedlions  of  modern 
times.  Yet,  for  the  most  part,  proverbs  are  equally 
true  and  generous ;  and  there  is  as  much  profit  for 
others  as  for  a  man's  self  in  believing  that  "  early  to 
bed  and  early  to  rise  will  make  a  man  healthy  and 
wealthy  and  wise  : "  for  the  voluntary  early  riser  is 
seldom  one  who  is  insensible  to  the  beautv  as  well  as 
the  uses  of  the  spring  of  day  ;  and  in  becoming  healthy 
and  wise,  as  well  as  rich,  he  becomes  good-humored 
and  considerate,  and  is  disposed  to  make  a  handsome 
use  of  the  wealth  he  acquires.  Mere  saving  and  spar- 
ing (which  is  the  ugliest  way  to  wealth)  permits  a 
man  to  lie  in  bed  as  long  as  most  other  people,  espe- 
cially in  winter,  when  he  saves  fire  by  it ;  but  a  gallant 
acquisition  should  be  as  stirring  in  this  respe6t  as  it  is 
in  others,  and  thus  render  its  riches  a  comfort  to  it, 
instead  of  a  means  of  unhealthy  care  and  a  prepara- 
tion for  disappointment.  How  many  rich  men  do  we 
not  see  jaundiced  and  worn,  not  w^ith  necessary  care, 
but  superfluous  ;  and  secretly  cursing  their  riches,  as  if 
it  were  the  foult  of  the  money  itself,  and  not  of  the  bad 
management  of  their  health?  These  poor,  unhappy, 
rich  peojile  come  at  length  to  hug  their  money  out 
of  a  sort  of  spleen  and  envy  at  the  luckier  and  less 
miserable  poverty'  that  wants  it,  and  thus  lead  the 
lives  of  dogs  in  the  manger,  and  are  almost  tempted  to 
hang  themselves ;  whereas,  if  they  could  jDurify  the 
current  of  their  blood  a  little,  which,  perhaps,  they 
might  do  by  early  rising  alone,  without  a  penny  for 
physic,  they  might  find  themselves  growing  more  p:\- 
tient,  more  cheerful,  more  liberal,  and  be  astonished 
and  delighted  at  receiving  the  praises  of  the  commu- 


72  THE   SEER. 

nity  for  their  public  spirit  and  their  patronage  of 
noble  Institutions.  Oh  !  if  we  could  but  get  half  Lon- 
don up  at  an  earlier  hour,  how  they,  and  our  colleges 
and  univei^sities  and  royal  academies,  &c.,  would  all 
take  a  start  together,  and  how  the  quack  advertise- 
ments in  the  newspapers  would  diminish  ! 

But  we  must  not  pretend,  meanwhile,  to  be  more 
virtuous  ourselves  than  frail  teachers  are  apt  to  be. 
The  truth  is,  that  lying  in  bed  is  so  injurious  to  onr 
particular  state  of  health,  that  we  are  early  risers  in 
self-defence  ;  and  we  were  not  always  such :  so  that 
we  .are  qualified  to  speak  to  both  sides  of  the  question. 
And  as  to  our  present  article,  it  is  owing  to  a  relapse  ! 
and  we  fear  is  a  very  dull  one  in  consequence  ;  for  we 
are  obliged  to  begin  it  earlier  than  usual,  in  conse- 
quence of  being  late.  We  shall  conclude  it  with  the 
sprightliest  testimony  we  can  call  to  mind  in  favor  of 
early  rising  ;  which  is  that  of  James  the  First,  the  royal 
poet  of  Scotland,  a  worthy  disciple  of  Chaucer,  who, 
when  he  was  kept  in  unjust  captivity  during  his  youth 
by  Henry  the  Fourth,  fell  in  love  with  his  future  excel- 
lent queen,  in  consequence  of  seeing  her  through  his 
prison-windows  walking  in  a  garden  at  break  of  da}', 
as  Palamon  and  Arcite  did  Emilia  ;  which  caused  him 
to  exclaim,  in  words  that  might  be  often  quoted  by 
others  out  of  gratitude  to  the  same  hour,  though  on  a 
different  occasion,  — 

"  Mv  custom  was  to  rise 
Early  as  day.     Oh  happy  exercise, 
By  thee  I  came  to  joy  out  of  torment !  " 

See  the  "  King's  Quair,"  the  poem  he  wrote  about  it. 
We  quote  from  memory',  but  we  believe  ^vith  corre(fl- 
ness. 


73 


BREAKFAST  IN   SUMMER. 


REAKFAST  in  summer ! "  cries  a  reader, 
in  some  narrow  street  in  a  cit}' :  "  that 
means,  I  suppose,  a  breakfast  out  of  doors, 
among  trees  ;  or,  at  least,  in  some  fine  breakfast-room, 
looking  upon  a  lawn  or  into  a  conservatory.  I  have 
no  such  breakfast-room  :  the  article  is  not  written  for 
me.  However,  let  us  see  what  it  says  ;  let  us  see 
whether,  according  to  our  friend's  recipe,  — 

"  One  can  hold 
A  silver- fork,  and  breast  of  pheasant  on't, 
By  thinking  of  sheer  tea,  and  bread  and  butter." 

Nay,  let  us  do  him  justice  too.  Fancy  is  a  good  thing, 
though  pheasant  may  be  better.  Come,  let  us  see 
what  he  says ;  let  us  look  at  his  Barmecide  break- 
fast, —  at  all  the  good  things  I  am  to  eat  and  drink 
without  tasting  them." 

Editor.  Reader,  thou  art  one  of  the  right  sort. 
Thy  fancy  is  large,  though  thy  street  be  narrow.  In 
one  thing  only  do  we  find  thee  deficient.  Thy  faith  is 
not  perfeft. 

Reader.  How !  Am  I  not  prepared  to  enjoy  what 
I  cannot  have?  And  do  I  not  know  the  Barmecide? 
Am  I  not  a  reader  of  the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  —  a  will- 
ing visitor  of  that  facetious  personage  who  set  the 
imaginary  feast  before  the  poor  hungiy  devil  Shaca- 


VOL.    I. 


74  THE    SEER. 

bac,  and  made  him  drunk  with  invisible  wine,  till,  in 
the  retributive  intoxication  of  the  hvunor,  mine  host  got 
his  ears  boxed  ? 

Editor.  Halloo  !  what  is  that  you  are  saying?  Oh  ! 
you  "  intend  nothing  personal."  Well,  it  is  luckily 
added  ;  for,  look  you,  —  we  should  othenvise  have 
"  heaped  coals  of  fire  on  your  head."  The  want  of 
faith  we  complain  of  is  not  the  want  of  faith  in  books 
and  fancies,  but  in  us  and  our  intentions  towards  thy- 
self; for  how  camest  thou  to  suppose  that  we  intended 
omitting  thy  breakfast,  —  thy  unsophisticated  cup  of 
bohea,  and  most  respectable  bread  and  butter?  Why, 
it  is  of  and  to  such  breakfasts  that  we  write  most. 
The  others,  unless  their  refinement  be  of  the  true, 
universal  sort,  might  fancy  they  could  do  without  us  ; 
whereas  those  that  really  can  do  so  are  not  unwilling 
to  give  us  reception,  for  sympathy's  sake,  if  for  nothing 
else.  To  enjoy  is  to  reciprocate.  We  have  the  honor 
(in  this  our  paper  person)  of  appearing  at  some  of  the 
most  refined  breakfast-tables  in  the  kingdom  ;  some  of 
these  being  at  the  same  time  the  richest,  and  some  the 
poorest,  that  epicure  could  seek  or  eschew,  —  that  is  to 
say,  unintelle(5lual  epicure  ;  and,  when  such  a  man  is 
found  at  either,  we  venture  to  afiirm  that  he  misses 
the  best  things  to  be  found  near  him.  It  does  not 
become  us  to  name  names  ;  but  we  may  illustrate  the 
matter  by  saying,  that,  had  it  been  written  fort}'  years 
back,  we  have  good  reason  to  think  that  the  intentions 
of  this  our  set  of  essays  would  have  procured  it  no 
contemptuous  welcome  at  the  breakfast-table  of  Fox 
with  his  lords  about  him,  or  Burns  with  his  "  bonnie 
Jeanie  "  at  his  side.     Porcelain,  or  potter's  clay,  silver 


^ 


BREAKFAST    IN   SUMMER.  75 

or  pewter,  potted  meats,  oatmeal  or  bacon,  are  all  one 
to  us,  provided  there  is  a  good  appetite,  and  a  desire 
to  make  the  best  of  ivhat  is  before  us.  Without  that, 
who  would  breakfast  with  the  richest  of  fools?  and 
with  it,  who,  that  knows  the  relish  of  wit  and  good 
humor,  would  not  sit  down  to  the  humblest  fare  with 
inspired  poverty? 

Now,  the  art  of  making-  the  best  of -what  is  before 
7is  (not  in  forgetfulness  of  social  advancement,  but  in 
encouragement  of  it,  and  in  aid  of  the  requisite  activity 
or  patience,  as  the  case  may  require)  is  one  of  the 
main  objects  of  this  publication  ;  and,  as  the  commoner 
breakfast  seems  to  requii-e  it  most,  it  is  to  such  tables 
the  present  paper  is  chiefly  addressed,  —  always  sujd- 
posing  that  the  breakfaster  is  of  an  intelligent  sort ; 
and  not  without  a  hope  of  suggesting  a  pleasant  fancy 
or  so  to  the  richest  tables  that  may  want  it.  And 
there  are  too  many  such  !  —  perhaps  because  the  table 
has  too  many  "  good  things  "  on  it  already,  —  too  much 
potted  gout  and  twelve-shilling  irritability. 

Few  people,  rich  or  poor,  make  the  most  of  what 
they  possess.  In  their  anxiety  to  increase  the  amount 
of  the  means  for  future  enjoyment,  they  are  too  apt  to 
lose  sight  of  the  capability  of  them  for  present.  Above 
all,  they  overlook  the  thousand  helps  to  enjoyment 
which  lie  round  about  them,  free  to  everybody,  and 
obtainable  by  the  very  willingness  to  be  pleased,  as- 
sisted by  that  fancy  and  imagination  which  Nature  has 
bestowed,  more  or  less,  upon  all  human  beings.  Some 
miscalled  Utilitarians,  incapable  of  their  own  master's 
dodrine,  may  aflecl  to  undervalue  fancy  and  imagina- 
tion, as  though  they  were  not  constituent  properties  of 


*j6  THE    SEER. 

the  human  mind,  and  as  if  they  themselves,  the  mis- 
takers,  did  not  enjoy  even  what  they  do  by  their  very 
assistance  !  Why,  they  liave  fancies  for  tliis  or  that 
teacup,  this  or  that  coat,  this  or  that  pretty  face ! 
They  get  handsome  wives,  when  they  can,  as  well  as 
other  people,  and  when  plain  ones  would  be  quite  as 
"useful"!  How  is  that?  They  pretend  to  admire 
tlie  green  fields,  the  blue  sky,  and  would  be  ashamed  to 
be  insensible  to  the  merits  of  the  flowers.  How  can 
they  take  upon  them  to  say  where  the  precise  line 
should  be  drawn,  and  at  what  point  it  is  we  are  to 
cease  turning  these  perceptions  of  pleasure  and  ele- 
gance to  account? 

The  first  requisite  towards  enjoying  a  breakfast,  or 
any  thing  else,  is  the  willingness  to  be  pleased  ;  and 
the  greatest  proof  and  security  of  this  willingness  is 
the  willingness  to  please  others.  "Better"  (says  a 
venerable  text)  "  is  a  dinner  of  herbs,  where  peace  is, 
than  a  stalled  ox  with  contention."  Many  a  breakfast, 
that  has  every  other  means  of  enjoyment,  is  turned 
to  bitterness  by  unwilling  discordant  looks,  perhaps  to 
the  great  misery  of  some  persons  present,  who  would 
give  and  receive  happiness  if  at  any  other  table.  Now, 
breakfast  is  a  foretaste  of  the  whole  day.  Spoil  that, 
and  we  probably  spoil  all.  Begin  it  well,  and  if  we 
are  not  very  silly  or  ill-taught  persons  indeed,  and  at 
tlie  mercy  of  every  petty  impulse  of  anger  and  offence, 
we  in  all  probability  make  the  rest  of  the  day  worthy 
of  it.  These  petty  impulses  are  apt  to  produce  great 
miseries  ;  and  the  most  provoking  part  of  the  busi- 
ness is,  that  for  want  of  better  teaching,  or  of  a  little 
forethought   or    imagination,   they  are    sometimes    in- 


BREAKFAST    IN    SUMMER.  77 

dulged  in  by  people  of  good  hearts,  who  would  be 
ready  to  tear  their  hair  for  anguish  if  they  saw  you 
wounded  or  in  a  ht,  and  yet  will  make  your  tlays  a 
heap  of  wretchedness  by  the  eternal  repetition  of  these 
absurdities. 

It  being  premised,  then,  that  persons  must  come  to 
breakfast  without  faces  sour  enough  to  turn  the  milk 
(and  we  begin  to  think  that  our  cautions  on  this  head 
are  unnecessary  to  such  readers  as  are  likely  to  pat- 
ronize us),  we  have  to  inform  the  most  unpretending 
breakfaster,  —  the  man  the  least  capable  of  potted 
meats,  partridges,  or  preserves,  —  that,  in  the  common- 
est tea-equipage  and  fare  which  is  set  upon  his  board, 
he  possesses  a  treasure  of  pleasant  thoughts ;  and  that 
if  he  can  command  but  the  addition  of  a  flower,  or  a 
green  bough,  or  a  book,  he  may  add  to  them  a  visible 
grace  and  luxury,  such  as  the  richest  wits  in  the  nation 
would  respe6l. 

"  True  taste,"  says  one  of  these  very  persons  (Mr. 
Rogers,  in  his  notes  to  a  poem),  "is  an  excellent 
economist.  She  delights  in  producing  great  effe6ls  by- 
small  means."  This  maxim  holds  good,  we  see,  even 
amidst  the  costliest  elegances :  how  much  more  is  it 
precious  to  those  whose  means  are  of  necessity  small, 
while  their  hearts  are  large?  Suppose  the  reader  is 
forced  to  be  an  economist,  and  to  have  nothing  on  his 
breakfast-table  but  plain  tea  and  bread  and  butter. 
Well :  he  is  not  forced  also  to  be  sordid  or  wretched, 
or  without  fancy,  love,  or  intelligence.  Neither  are 
his  teacups  forced  to  be  ill-shaped,  nor  his  bread  and 
butter  ill-cut,  nor  his  table-cloth  dirty  ;  and  shapeli- 
ness and  cleanliness  are  in  themselves  elegances,  and 


78  THE    SEER. 

of  no  mean  order.  The  spirit  of  all  other  elegance  is 
in  them,  —  that  of  sele(5lness,  —  of  the  superiority  to 
what  is  unfit  and  superfluous.  Besides,  a  breakfast 
of  this  kind  is  the  prefei'ence,  or  good  old  custom,  of 
thousands  who  could  aflbrd  a  richer  one.  It  may  be 
called  the  staple  breakfast  of  England  ;  and  he  who 
cannot  make  an  excellent  meal  of  it  would  be  in  no 
very  good  way  with  the  luxiu'ies  of  a  George  the 
Fourth,  still  less  with  the  robust  meats  of  a  huntsman. 
Delicate  appetites  may  reasonably  be  stimulated  a 
little,  till  regularity  and  exercise  put  them  in  better 
order ;  and  nothing  is  to  be  said  against  the  innocen- 
cies  of  honeys  and  marmalades.  But  strong  meats  of 
a  morning  are  only  for  those  who  take  strong  exercise, 
or  who  have  made  up  their  minds  to  defy  the  chances 
of  gout  and  corpulence,  or  the  undermining  pre-diges- 
tion  of  pill-taking. 

If  the  man  of  taste  is  able  to  choose  his  mode  of 
breakfasting  in  summer-time,  he  will  of  course  invest 
it  with  all  the  natural  luxuries  within  his  reach.  He 
will  have  it  in  a  room  looking  upon  grass  and  trees, 
hung  with  paintings,  and  furnished  with  books.  He 
will  sit  with  a  beautiful  portrait  beside  him  ;  and  the 
air  shall  breathe  freshly  into  his  room  ;  the  sun  shall 
color  the  foliage  at  his  window,  and  shine  betwixt 
their  checkering  shadows  upon  the  table  ;  and  the  bee 
shall  come  to  partake  the  honey  he  has  made  for  him. 

But  suppose  that  a  man  capable  of  relishing  all  these 
good  things  does  not  possess  one  of  them  ;  at  least, 
can  command  none  that  require  riches.  Nay,  suppose 
him  destitute  of  every  thing  but  the  plainest  fare,  in 
the  plainest  room,  and  in  the  least  accommodating  part 


BREAKFAST    IN    SUMMER.  79 

of  the  city.  What  does  he  do?  Or  what,  upon  ru- 
fledion,  may  he  be  led  to  do?  Why,  his  taste  will 
have  recourse  to  its  own  natural  and  acquired  riches, 
and  make  the  utmost  it  can  out  oF  the  materials  before 
it.  It  will  show  itself  superior  to  that  of  thousands  of 
ignorant  rich  men,  and  make  its  good-will  and  its 
knowledge  open  sources  of  entertainment  to  him  un- 
known to  treasures  which  they  want  the  wit  to  unlock. 
Be  willing  to  be  pleased,  and  the  power  will  come. 
Be  a  reader,  getting  all  the  information  you  can  ;  and 
every  fresh  information  will  paint  some  commonplace 
article  for  you  with  brightness.  Such  a  man  as  we 
have  described  will  soon  learn  not  to  look  upon  the 
commonest  table  or  chair  without  deriving  pleasure 
from  its  shape  or  shapability  ;  nor  on  the  cheapest 
and  most  ordinary  teacup,  without  inci"easing  that 
gratification  with  fifty  amusing  recolle6tions  of  books 
and  plants  and  colors,  and  strange  birds,  and  the 
quaint  domesticities  of  the  Chinese. 

For  instance,  if  he  breakfasts  in  a  room  of  the  kind 
just  mentioned  (which  is  putting  the  case  as  strongly 
as  we  can,  and  implies  all  the  greater  comforts  that 
can  be  drawn  from  situations  of  a  better  kind),  he  will 
seledt  the  snuggest  or  least  cheerless  part  of  the  room 
to  set  his  table  in.  If  he  can  catch  a  glimpse  of  a  tree 
from  any  part  of  a  window  (and  a  great  many  more 
such  glimpses  are  to  be  had  in  the  city  than  people 
would  suppose),  he  will  plant  his  chair,  if  possible, 
within  view  of  it ;  or,  if  no  tree  is  to  be  had,  perhaps 
the  morning  sun  comes  into  his  room,  and  lie  will 
contrive  that  his  table  shall  have  a  slice  of  that.  He 
will  not  be   unamused  even   with   the  Jack-o'-lantern 


8o  THE    SEER. 

which  strikes  up  to  the  ceiling,  and  dances  with  the 
stirring  oT  his  tea,  glancing  and  twinkling  like  some 
chuckling  elfin  eye,  or  reminding  him  of  some  wit 
making  his  brilliant  refle6tions,  and  casting  a  light 
upon  commonplaces.  The  sun  is  ever  beautiful  and 
noble,  and  brings  a  cheerfulness  out  of  heaven  itself 
into  the  humblest  apartment,  if  we  have  but  the  spirit 
to  welcome  it. 

But  if  we  have  neither  tree  nor  sun,  and  nobody 
with  us  to  make  amends,  suppose  it  winter-time,  and 
that  we  have  a  fire.  This  is  sun  and  company  too, 
and  such  an  associate  as  will  either  talk  with  us,  if  we 
choose  to  hear  it ;  or  leave  us  alone,  and  give  us  com- 
fort unheard.  It  is  now  summer-time,  however ;  and 
we  had  better  reserve  our  talk  of  fires  for  cold  weatlier. 
Our  present  object  is  rather  to  point  out  some  new 
modes  of  making  tlie  best  of  imaginary  wants,  dian  to 
dilate  upon  luxuries  recognized  by  all. 

Suppose  then,  that  neither  a  fire,  the  great  friend 
in-doors,  nor  sunshine,  the  great  friend  out-of-doors, 
be  found  with  us  in  our  breakfast  -  room  ;  that  we 
could  neither  receive  pleasure  from  the  one,  if  we 
had  it,  nor  can  command  a  room  into  which  the 
other  makes  its  way :  what  ornament  is  there  — 
what  supply  of  light. or  beaut}'  could  we  discover,  at 
once  exquisite  and  cheap  —  that  should  furnish  our 
humble  boai'd  with  a  grace  precious  in  the  eyes  of  the 
most  intelligent  among  the  rich?  Flowers,  Set 
flowers  on  your  table,  a  whole  nosegay  if  you  can  get 
it ;  or  but  two  or  three,  or  a  single  flower,  —  a  rose, 
a  pink,  nay,  a  daisy.  Bring  a  few  daisies  and  butter- 
cups from  your  last  field-walk,  and  keep  them  alive  in 


BREAKFAST    IN    SUMMER.  Si 

a  little  water  ;  nv,  presei-ve  but  a  bunch  of  clover,  or  a 
handful  of  flowering  grass,  one  of  the  most  elegant  as 
well  as  cheap  of  Nature's  productions,  and  you  have 
something  on  your  table  that  reminds  you  of  the  beau- 
ties of  God's  creation,  and  gives  you  a  link  with  the 
poets  and  sages  that  have  done  it  most  honor.  Put  but 
a  rose  or  a  lily  or  a  violet  on  your  table,  and  yoit  and 
Lord  Bacon  have  a  custom  in  common  ;  for  that  great 
and  wise  man  was  in  the  habit  of  having  the  flowers 
in  season  set  upon  his  table,  —  morning,  we  believe, 
noon,  and  night ;  that  is  to  say,  at  all  his  meals :  for 
dinner,  in  his  time,  was  taken  at  noon.  And  why  should 
he  not  have  flowers  at  all  his  meals,  seeing  that  they 
were  growing  all  day?  Now,  here  is  a  fashion  that 
shall  last  you  for  ever,  if  you  please  ;  never  changing 
with  silks  and  velvets  and  silver  forks,  nor  dependent 
upon  the  caprice  of  some  fine  gentleman  or  lady,  who 
have  nothing  but  caprice  and  change  to  give  them 
importance  and  a  sensation.  The  fashion  of  the  gar- 
ments of  heaven  and  earth  endures  for  ever,  and  you 
may  adorn  your  table  with  specimens  of  their  drapery, 
—  with  flowers  out  of  the  fields,  and  golden  beams  out 
of  the  blue  ether. 

Flowers  on  a  morning  table  are  specially  suitable  to 
the  time.  They  look  like  the  happy  wakening  of  the 
creation :  they  bring  the  perfumes  of  the  breath  of 
Nature  into  your  room  ;  they  seem  the  i-epresentations 
and  embodiments  of  the  very  smiles  of  your  home,  the 
graces  of  its  good-morrow  ;  proofs  that  some  intellectual 
beauty  is  in  ourselves,  or  those  about  us  ;  some  house 
Aurora  (if  we  are  so  lucky  as  to  have  such  a  compan- 
ion) helping  to  strew  our  life  with  sweets  ;    or  in  our- 


82  THE    SEER. 

selves  some  masculine  mildness  not  unworthy  to  pos- 
sess such  a  companion,  or  unlikely  to  gain  her. 

Even  a  few  leaves,  if  we  can  get  no  flowers,  are  far 
better  than  no  such  ornament,  —  a  branch  from  the 
next  tree,  or  the  next  herb-iharket,  or  some  twigs  that 
have  been  plucked  from  a  flowering  hedge.  They  are 
often,  nay  always,  beautiful,  particularly  in  spi-ing, 
when  their  green  is  tenderest.  The  first  new  boughs 
in  spring,  plucked  and  put  into  a  water-bottle,  have 
often  an  efi'e(5l  that  may  compete  with  flowers  them- 
selves, considering  their  novelty' ;    and  indeed  — 

"Leaves  would  be  coiuated  flowers,  if  earth  had  none." 

(There  is  a  verse  for  the  reader ;  and  not  a  bad  one, 
considering  its  truth.)  We  often  have  vines  (such  as 
they  are, — better  than  none)  growing  upon  tlie  walls 
of  our  city  houses,  —  or  clematis,  or  jessamine  ;  per- 
haps ivy  on  a  bit  of  an  old  garden-wall,  or  a  tree  in  a 
court.  We  should  pluck  a  sprig  of  it,  and  plant  it 
on  our  breakfast-table.  It  would  show  that  the  cheap 
elegances  of  earth,  the  universal  gifts  of  the  beauty  of 
nature,  are  not  thrown  away  upon  us.  They  shadow 
prettily  over  the  clean  table-cloth  or  the  pastoral  milk, 
like  a  piece  of  nature  brought  in-doors.  The  tender 
bodies  of  the  young  vernal  shoots  above  mentioned, 
put  into  water,  might  be  almost  fancied  clustering  to- 
gether with  a  sort  of  virgin  delicacy,  like  young 
nym2:)hs,  mute-struck,  in  a  fountain.  Nay,  any  leaves, 
not  quite  faded,  look  well,  as  a  substitute  for  the  want 
of  flowers,  —  those  of  the  common  elm  ;  or  the  plane  ; 
or  the  I'ough  oak,  especially  when  it  has  become  gentle 
with  its  acorn  tassels  ;  or  the  lime,  which  is  tasselled  in 


BREAKFAST    IN    SUMMER.  83 

a  more  flowery  manner,  and  has  a  breath  as  beautiful. 
Ivy,  which  is  seldom  or  never  brought  in-doors,  greatly 
deserves  to  be  better  treated,  especially  the  young 
shoots  of  it,  which  point  in  a  most  elegant  manner 
over  the  margin  of  a  glass  or  decanter,  seeming  to 
have  been  newly  scissored  forth  by  some  fairy  hand, 
or  by  its  own  invisible  quaint  spirit,  as  if  conscious  of 
the  tendency  within  it.  Even  the  green  tips  of  the  fir- 
trees,  which  seem  to  have  been  brushed  by  the  golden 
pencil  of  the  sun,  when  he  resumes  his  painting,  bring 
a  sort  of  light  and  vernal  joy  into  a  room,  in  default  of 
brighter  visitors.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  a  loving 
and  refle6ling  spirit  to  have  any  thing  so  good  as  those. 
A  bit  of  elm-tree  or  poplar  would  do,  in  the  absence 
of  any  thing  rarer.  For  our  parts,  as  far  as  ourself 
alone  is  concerned,  it  seems  to  us  that  we  could  not  be 
mastered  by  the  blackest  storm  of  existence,  in  the 
worst  pass  that  our  pilgrimage  could  bring  us  to,  as 
long  as  we  had  shelter  over  our  heads,  a  table  with 
bread  and  a  cup  of  tea  upon  it,  and  a  single  one  of 
these  green  smiles  upon  the  board,  to  show  us  that 
good-natured  Nature  was  alive. 

Does  any  reader  misgive  himself,  and  fancy  that  to 
help  himself  to  such  comforts  as  these  would  be  "  tri- 
fling "  ?  Oh  !  let  him  not  so  condescend  to  the  igno- 
rance of  the  proud  or  envious.  If  this  were  trifling, 
then  was  Bacon  a  trifler,  then  was  the  great  Conde  a 
trifler,  and  the  old  Republican  Ludlow,  and  all  the 
great  and  good  spirits  that  have  loved  flowers,  and 
Milton's  Adam  himself,  nay,  heaven  itself;  for  heaven 
made  these  harmless  elegances,  and  blessed  them  with 
tlie  universal  good-will  of  the  wise  and  innocent.     To 


84  THE    SEER. 

trifle  is  not  to  make  use  of  small  pleasures  for  the  help 
and  refreshment  of  our  duties,  but  to  be  incapable  of 
that  real  estimation  of  either,  which  enables  us  the 
better  to  appreciate  and  assist  both.  The  same  mighty- 
energy  which  whirls  the  earth  round  the  sun,  and 
crashes  the  heavens  with  thunderbolts,  produces  the 
lilies  of  the  valley,  and  the  gentle  dewdrops  that  keep 
them  fair. 

To  return,  then,  to  our  flowers  and  our  breakfast- 
table  :  were  time  and  place  so  cruel  as  not  to  gi"ant 
us  even  a  twig,  still  there  is  a  last  resource,  and  a  rich 
one  too,  —  not  quite  so  cheap  as  the  other,  but  ob- 
tainable now-a-days  by  a  few  pence,  and  which  may 
be  said  to  grow  also  on  the  public  walls,  —  a  book. 
We  read,  in  old  stories,  of  enchanters  who  drew  gai"- 
dens  out  of  snow ;  and  of  tents  no  bigger  than  a  nut- 
shell, which  opened  out  over  a  whole  army.  Of  a 
like  nature  is  the  magic  of  a  book,  —  a  casket,  from 
which  you  may  draw  out,  at  will,  bowers  to  sit  under, 
and  affe6lionate  beauties  to  sit  by,  and  have  trees, 
flowers,  and  an  exquisite  friend,  all  at  one  spell.  We 
see  it  now  before  us,  standing  among  the  cups,  edge- 
ways, plain-looking,  perhaps  poor  and  battered,  per- 
haps bought  of  some  dull  huckster  in  a  lane  for  a  few 
pence.  On  its  back  we  read,  in  old  worn-out  letters 
of  enchantment,  the  word  "  Milton  ;  "  and,  upon  open- 
ing it,  lo  !  we  are  breakfasting  forthwith,  — 

"  Betwixt  two  aged  oaks, 
On  herbs  and  other  country  messes 
Whic'i  the  neat-handed  Phillis  dresses," 

in  a  pUce  which  they  call  "  Allegro."  Or  the  word 
on  the  back  of  the  casket  is  "  Pope  ;"  and  instantly  a 


BREAKFAST    IN    SUMMER.  8^ 

beautv  in  a  "  neglige"  makes  breakfast  for  us,  and  we 
have  twenty  sylphs  instead  of  butterflies,  tickling  the 
air  round  about  us,  and  comparing  colors  with  the 
flowers,  or  pouncing  upon  the  crumbs  that  threaten  to 
foil  upon  her  stomacher.  Or  "  Thomson  "  is  the  magic 
name  ;  and  a  friend  still  sweeter  sits  beside  us,  with 
her  eyes  on  ours,  and  tells  us  with  a  pressui"e  on  the 
hand,  and  soft,  low  words,  that  our  cup  awaits  us.  Or 
we  cry  aloud,  "  Theocritus  ! "  plunging  into  the  sweet- 
est depths  of  the  cormtry  ;  and,  lo  !  we  breakfast,  down 
in  a  thick  valley  of  leaves  and  brooks  and  the  brown 
summer-time,  upon  creams  and  honey -combs,  the 
guest  of  bearded  Pan  and  the  Nymphs  ;  while  at  a 
distance,  on  his  mountain-top,  poor  overgrown  Poly- 
phemus, tamed  and  made  mild  with  the  terrible  sweet 
face  of  love,  which  has  frightened  him  with  a  sense  of 
new  thoughts,  and  of  changes  which  cannot  be,  sits 
overshadowing  half  of  the  vineyards  below  him,  and, 
with  his  brow  in  tears,  blows  his  harsh  reeds  over  the 
sea. 

Such  has  been  many  a  breakfast  of  our  own,  dear 
readers,  with  poverty  on  one  side  of  us,  and  these 
riches  on  the  other.  Such  must  be  many  of  yours ; 
and,  as  far  as  the  riches  are  concerned,  such  may  be 
all.  But  how  is  this?  We  have  left  out  the  milk, 
and  the  bread,  and  the  tea  itself!  We  must  have  an- 
otlier  breakfast  with  the  reader,  in  order  to  do  tliem 
justice. 


86 


BREAKFAST   CONTINUED. 


Tea-drinking. 


BREAKFAST  -  TABLE  in  the  morning, 
clean  and  white  with  its  table-cloth,  colored 
with  the  cups  and  saucers,  and  glittering  with 
the  teapot,  —  is  it  not  a  cheerful  objecfl,  reader?  and 
are  you  not  always  glad  to  see  it? 

We  know  not  any  inanimate  sight  more  pleasant, 
unless  it  be  a  very  fine  painting,  or  a  whole  abode 
snugly  pitched ;  and,  even  then,  one  of  the  best  things 
to  fancy  in  it  is  the  morning  ineal. 

The  yellow  or  mellow-colored  butter  (which  softens 
the  effe6l  of  the  other  hues),  the  milk,  the  bread,  the 
sugar,  —  all  have  a  simple,  temperate  look,  very  relish- 
ing, however,  to  a  hungry  man.  Perhaps  the  morning 
is  sunny :  at  any  rate,  the  day  is  a  new  one,  and  the 
hour  its  freshest.  We  have  been  invigorated  by  sleep. 
The  sound  of  the  shaken  canister  prepares  us  for  the 
fragrant  beverage  that  is  coming :  in  a  few  minutes  it 
is  poured  out ;  we  quaff  the  odorous  refreshment,  per- 
haps chatting  with  dear  kindred,  or  loving  and  laugh- 
ing with  the  "  morning  faces  "  of  children  ;  or,  if  alone, 
reading  one  of  the  volumes  mentioned  in  our  last, 
and  taking  tea,  book,  and  bread  and  butter,  all  at  once, 


BREAKFAST    CONTINUED.  87 

—  no  "inelegant"  pleasure,  as  Sir  Walter  Scott  saith 
of  the  eating  of  tarts.* 

Dear  reader,  male  or  female  (very  dear,  if  the  lat- 
ter), do  you  know  how  to  make  good  tea?  —  because, 
if  you  do  not  (and  we  have  known  many  otherwise 
accomplished  persons  fail  in  that  desideratum),  here  is 
a  recipe  for  you,  furnished  by  a  mistress  of  the  art :  — 

In  the  first  place,  the  teapot  is  found  by  experience 
to  be  best  when  it  is  made  of  metal.  But,  whether 
metal  or  ware,  take  care  that  it  be  thoroughly  clean, 
and  the  water  thoroughly  boiling.  There  should  not 
be  a  leaf  of  the  stale  tea  left  from  the  last  meal.  The 
tests  of  boiling  are  various  with  diflerent  people  :  but 
there  can  be  no  uncertainty,  if  the  steam  come  out  of 
the  lid  of  the  kettle  ;  and  it  is  best,  therefore,  to  be  sure 
of  that  evidence.  No  good  tea  can  be  depended  upon 
from  an  urn,  because  an  urn  cannot  be  kept  boiling ; 
and  water  should  never  be  put  upon  the  tea  but  in  a 
thoroughly  and  initncd lately  boiling  state.  If  it  has 
done  boiling,  it  should  be  made  to  boil  again.  Boiling, 
proportion,  and  attention  are  the  three  magic  words 
of  tea-making.  The  water  should  also  be  soft,  —  hard 
water  being  sure  to  spoil  the  best  tea  :  and  it  is  advisa- 
ble to  prepare  the  teapot  against  a  chill,  by  letting  a 
small   quantity  of  hot  water   stand    in    it   before   you 

»  In  his  "Life  of  Dryden;"  original  edition,  p.  86:  "Even  for  some 
time  after  his  connection  with  the  theatre,  we  learn,  from  a  contemporary, 
that  his  dress  was  plain  at  least,  if  not  mean;  and  his  pleasures  moderate, 
though  not  inelegant.  '  I  remember,'  says  a  correspondent  of  the  '  Gen- 
tleman's Magazine '  for  1745,  '  plain  John  Dryden,  before  he  paid  his 
court  with  success  to  the  great,  in  one  uniform  ciotiiing  of  Norwich-drug- 
get. I  have  eat  tarts  with  him  and  Madam  Reeve  at  the  Mulberry  Gar- 
dens, when  our  author  advanced  to  a  sword  and  a  Chadreux  wig."  " 


88  THE    SEER. 

begin  ;  emptying  it  out,  of  course,  when  you  do  so. 
These  premises  being  taken  care  of,  excellent. tea  may 
be  made  for  one  person  by  putting  into  the  pot  three 
teaspoonfuls,  and  as  much  water  as  will  cover  the 
quantity.  Let  this  stand  five  minutes,  and  then  add 
as  much  more  as  will  twice  fill  the  cup  you  are  going 
to  use.  Leave  this  additional  water  another  five  min- 
utes ;  and  then,  first  putting  the  sugar  and  milk  into 
the  cup,  pour  out  the  tea  ;  making  sure  to  put  in  an- 
other cup  of  boiling  water  directly. 

Of  tea  made  for  a  party,  a  spoonful  for  each,  and  one 
over,  must  be  used  ;  taking  care  never  to  drain  the  tea- 
pot^ and  always  to  add  the  requisite  quantity  of  boiling 
water  as  just  mentioned. 

The  most  exquisite  tea  is  not  j^erhaps  the  whole- 
somest.  The  more  green  there  is  in  it,  certainly  the 
less  Avholesome  it  is  ;  though  green  adds  to  the  palata- 
bleness.  And  drinking  tea  very  hot  is  a  pernicious 
custom.  Green  tea  and  hot  tea  make  up  the  two  causes 
which  produce  perhaps  all  the  injurious  results  attribut- 
ed to  tea-drinking.  Their  united  efte6ts,  in  particular, 
are  sometimes  formidable  to  the  "  nei"\^es,'"  and  to  per- 
sons liable  to  be  kept  awake  at  night.  Excellent  tea 
may  be  made,  by  judicious  management,  of  black  tea 
alone  ;  and  this  is  unquestionably  the  most  wholesome. 
Yet  a  little  green  is  hardly  to  be  omitted. 

Now,  have  a  cup  of  tea  thus  well  made,  and  you  will 
find  it  a  very  different  thing  from  the  insipid  dilution 
which  some  call  tea,  watery  at  the  edges,  and  trans- 
parent half-way  down  ;  or  the  sirup  into  which  some 
convert  their  tea,  who  are  no  tea-drinkers,  but  should 
take  treacle  for  their  breakfast :    or  the  mere  strensfth 


BREAKFAST    CONTINUED.  89 

of  tea,  without  any  due  qualification  from  other  mate- 
rials, —  a  tiling  no  better  than  melted  tea-leaves,  or 
than  those  which  it  is  said  were  a6tually  served  up  at 
dinner,  like  gi-eens,  when  tea  was  first  got  hold  of  by 
people  in  remote  country  parts,  who  had  not  heard  of 
the  way  of  using  it,  —  a  dish  of  acrid  bitterness.  In 
tea,  properly  so  called,  you  should  slightly  taste  the 
sugar,  be  sensible  of  a  balmy  softness  in  the  milk,  and 
enjoy  at  once  a  solidity,  a  delicacy,  a  relish,  and  a  fra- 
grance in  the  tea.  Thus  compounded,  it  is  at  once  a 
refreshment  and  an  elegance,  and,  w^e  believe,  the 
most  innocent  of  cordials ;  for  "we  think  we  can  say 
from  experience,  that,  when  tea  does  harm,  it  is  either 
from  the  unmitigated  strength  just  mentioned,  or  from 
its  being  taken  too  hot,  —  a  common  and  most  perni- 
cious custom.  The  inside  of  a  man,  dear  people,  is 
not  a  kitchen  copper. 

But  good  tea,  many  of  you  may  say,  is  dear.  Tea  of 
all  sorts  is  a  great  deal  too  dear ;  but  we  have  known 
very  costly  tea  turn  out  poor  in  the  drinking,  and  com- 
paratively poor  tea  become  precious.  Out  of  very  bad 
tea  it  is  perhaps  impossible  to  make  a  good  cup  ;  but 
skill  and  patience  are  famous  for  converting  ordinaiy 
materials  into  something  valuable.  And  it  should  be 
added,  that  it  is  better  to  have  one  cup  of  good  tea  than 
half  a  dozen  of  bad.  Nevertheless,  we  are  not  for 
despising  the  worst  of  all,  if  the  drinker  finds  any  kind 
of  refreshment  in  it,  and  can  procure  no  better.  The 
very  natncs  of  tea  and  tea-time  are  worth  something. 

And  this  brings  us  to  an  association  of  ideas,  which, 
however  common  with  us  at  the  breakfast-table,  and 
doubtless  with  hundreds  of  other  people,  we  never  cx- 

VOL.    I.  8 


pO  THE    SEER. 

perience  without  finding  them  amusing.  We  allude  to 
China  and  the  Chinese.  The  very  word  tea^  so  petty, 
so  infantine,  so  winking-eyed,  so  expressive  somehow 
or  other  of  something  inexpressibly  minute  and  satisfied 
with  a  little  {tee  /),  resembles  the  idea  one  has  (perhaps 
a  very  mistaken  one)  of  that  extraordinary  people,  of 
whom  Europeans  know  little  or  nothing,  except  that 
they  sell  us  this  preparation,  bow  back  again  our  am- 
bassadors, have  a  language  consisting  only  of  a  few 
hundred  words,  gave  us  Ckina-waxQ  and  the  strange 
pictures  on  our  teacups,  made  a  certain  progress  in 
civilization  long  before  we  did,  mysteriously  stopped  at 
it,  and  would  go  no  further,  and  if  numbers,  and  the 
customs  of  "  venerable  ancestors,"  are  to  carry  the  day, 
are  at  once  the  most  populous  and  the  most  respedlable 
nation  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  As  a  population,  they 
certainly  are  a  most  enormous  and  wonderful  body ; 
but,  as  individuals,  their  ceremonies,  their  trifling  edicts, 
their  jealousy  of  foreigners,  and  their  teacup  representa- 
tions of  themselves  (which  are  the  only  ones  jDopularly 
known),  impress  us  irresistibly  with  a  fancy,  that  they 
are  a  people  all  toddling,  little-eyed,  little-footed,  little- 
bearded,  little-minded,  quaint,  ovei"weening,  pig-tailed, 
bald-headed,  cone -capped,  or  pagoda -hatted,  having 
childish  houses  and  temples  with  bells  at  every  corner 
and  story,  and  shuffling  about  in  blue  landscapes,  over 
"  nine-inch  bridges,"  with  little  mysteries  of  bell-hung 
whips  in  their  hands,  — a  boat,  or  a  house,  or  a  ti'ee 
made  of  a  pattern,  being  over  their  heads  or  underneath 
them  (as  the  case  may  happen),  and  a  bird  as  large  as 
the  boat,  always  having  a  circular  white  space  to  fly 
in.     Such  are  the  Chinese  of  the  teacups  and  the  gi'o- 


BREAKFAST   CONTINUED.  9 1 

cers'  windows,  and  partly  of  theii-  own  novels  too,  in 
which  every  thing  seems  as  little  as  their  eyes,  —  little 
odes,  little  wine-parties,  and  a  series  of  little  satisfac- 
tions. However,  it  must  be  owned,  that  from  these 
novels  one  gradually  acquires  a  notion  that  there  is  a 
great  deal  more  good  sense  and  even  good  poetry 
among:  them  than  one  had  fancied  from  the  accounts 
of  embassies  and  the  autobiographical  paintings  on  the 
china-ware  ;  and  this  is  the  most  probable  supposition. 
An  ancient  and  great  nation,  as  civilized  as  they,  is  not 
likely  to  be  so  much  behind-hand  with  us  in  the  art  of 
living  as  our  self-complacency  leads  us  to  imagine. 
If  their  contempt  of  us  amounts  to  the  barbarous,  per- 
haps there  is  a  greater  share  of  barbarism  than  we 
suspect  in  our  scorn  of  them. 

At  all  events,  it  becomes  us  to  be  grateful  for  their  tea. 
What  a  curious  thing  it  was,  that  all  of  a  sudden  the 
remotest  nation  of  the  East,  othei'wise  unknown,  and 
foreign  to  all  our  habits,  should  convey  to  us  a  domes- 
tic custom,  which  changed  the  face  of  our  morning  re- 
freshments ;  and  that,  instead  of  ale  and  meat  or  wine, 
all  the  polite  part  of  England  should  be  drinking  a 
Chinese  infusion,  and  setting  up  earthern-ware  in  their 
houses,  painted  with  preposterous  scenery  !  We  shall 
not  speak  contemptuously,  for  our  parts,  of  any  such 
changes  in  the  history  of  a  nation's  habits,  any  more 
than  of  the  changes  of  the  wind,  which  now  comes  from 
the  west,  and  now  from  the  east,  doubtless  for  some 
good  purpose.  It  may  be  noted,  that  the  introduction 
of  tea-drinking  followed  the  diffusion  of  books  among 
us,  and  the  growth  of  more  sedentary  modes  of  life. 
The  breakfasters  upon  cold  beef  and  "  cool  tankards" 


92  THE    SEER. 

were  an  adlive,  horse-riding  generation.  Tea-drinking 
times  are  more  in-door,  given  to  reading,  and  are  riders 
in  carriages,  or  nianufadturers  at  the  loom  or  the  steam- 
engine.  It  may  be  taken  as  an  axiom,  —  the  more 
sedentary,  the  more  tea-drinking.  The  conjuncSlion  is 
not  the  best  in  the  workl ;  but  it  is  natural,  till  some- 
thing better  be  found.  Tea-drinking  is  better  than 
dram-drinking ;  a  practice  which,  if  our  memory  does 
not  deceive  us,  ^vas  creeping  in  among  the  politest  and 
even  the  foirest  circles  during  the  transition  from  ales 
to  teas.  When  the  late  Mr.  Hazlitt,  by  an  eflbrt  wor- 
thy of  him,  suddenly  left  off  the  stiff  glasses  of  brandy 
and  water  by  which  he  had  been  tempted  to  prop  up 
his  disappointments,  or  rather  to  loosen  his  tongue  at 
the  pleasant  hour  of  supper,  he  took  to  tea-drinking ; 
and,  it  must  be  owned,  was  latterly  tempted  to  make 
himself  as  much  amends  as  he  could  for  his  loss  of 
excitement,  in  the  quantity  he  allowed  himself:  but 
it  left  his  mind  free  to  exercise  its  powers  ;  it  "  kept," 
as  Waller  beautifully  says  of  it,  — 

"  The  palace  of  the  soul  serene  ;  " 

not,  to  be  sure,  the  quantity,  but  the  tea  itself,  com- 
pared with  the  other  drink.  The  prince  of  tea-drink- 
ers was  Dr.  Johnson,  one  of  the  most  sedentary  of  men, 
and  the  most  unhealthy.  It  is  to  be  feared  his  quantity 
suited  him  still  worse  ;  though  the  cups,  of  which  we 
hear  such  multitudinous  stories  about  him,  were  very 
small  in  his  time.  It  was  he  that  wrote,  or  rather 
effused^  the  humorous  request  for  tea,  in  ridicule  of 
the  style  of  the  old  ballads  (things,  be  it  said  without 
irreverence,  which  he  did   not  understand   so  well   as 


BREAKFAST    CONTINUED.  93 

"his  cups").     The  verses  were  extempore,  and  ad- 
dressed to  Mrs.  Thrale  :  — 

"  And  now,  I  pray  thee,  Hetty  dear, 
That  thou  wilt  give  to  me. 
With  cream  and  sugar  softened  well. 
Another  dish  of  tea. 

But  hear,  alas  !  this  mournful  truth,  — 

Nor  hear  it  with  a  frown,  — 
Tliou  canst  not  make  the  tea  so  fast 

As  I  can  gulp  it  down." 

Now,  this  is  among  the  pleasures  of  reading  and 
reflecting  men  over  their  breakfast,  or  on  any  other 
occasion.  The  si^fht  of  what  is  a  tiresome  nothinsf  to 
others  shall  suggest  to  them  a  hundred  agreeable  rec- 
olIe6lions  and  speculations.  There  is  a  teacup,  for 
example.  "  Well,  what  is  a  teacup?"  a  simpleton 
might  cry  :  "  it  holds  my  tea,  —  that's  all."  Yes,  that's 
all  to  you  and  your  poverty-stricken  brain  :  we  hope 
you  are  rich  and  prosperous,  to  make  up  for  it  as  well 
as  you  can.  But,  to  the  right  tea-drinker,  the  cup, 
we  see,  contains  not  only  recollections  of  eminent 
brethren  of  the  bohea,  but  the  whole  Chinese  nation, 
with  all  its  history.  Lord  Macartney  included  ;  nay, 
for  that  matter,  Ariosto  and  his  beautiful  story  of  An- 
gelica and  Mcdoro  ;  for  Angelica  was  a  Chinese  :  and 
then  collaterally  come  in  the  Chinese  neighbors  and 
conquerors  from  Tartary,  with  Chaucer's  — 

"  Story  of  Curabuscan  bold," 

and  the  travels  of  Marco  Polo  and  others,  and  the 
Jesuit  missionaries,  and  the  Japanese  with  our  friend 
Golownin,  and  the  Loo  Choo  people,   and  Confucius, 


94  THE    SEER. 

whom  Voltaire  (to  show  his  learning)  delights  to  call 
by  his  proper  native  appellation  of  Kong  -  foo  -  tsee 
(reminding  us  of  Congo  tea)  :  and  then  we  have  the 
Chinese  Tales,  and  Goldsmith's  "  Citizen  of  the  World," 
and  Goldsmith  brings  you  back  to  Johnson  again,  and 
the  tea-drinkings  of  old  times :  and  then  we  have  the 
"  Rape  of  the  Lock"  before  us,  with  Belinda  at  break- 
fast, and  Lady  Wortley  Montague's  tea-table  eclogue, 
and  the  domestic  pictures  in  the  "  Tatler"  and  "  Spec- 
tator," with  the  passions  existing  in  those  times  for 
chinaware  ;  and,  Horace  Walpole,  who  was  an  old 
woman  in  that  respedl ;  and,  in  short,  a  thousand  other 
memories,  grave  and  gay,  poetical  and  prosaical,  all 
ready  to  wait  upon  anybody  who  chooses  to  read  books, 
like  spirits  at  the  command  of  the  book-readers  of  old, 
who,  for  the  advantages  they  had  over  the  rest  of  the 
world,  got  the  title  of  Magicians. 

Yea,  pleasant  and  rich  is  thy  sight,  little  teacup  (largo, 
though,  at  breakfast),  round,  smooth,  and  colored; 
composed  of  delicate  earth,  —  like  the  earth,  producing 
flowers  and  birds  and  men ;  and  containing  within 
thee  thy  Lilliputian  ocean,  vrhich  we,  after  sending 
our  fancy  sailing  over  it,  past  islands  of  foam  called 
"  sixpences,"  and  mysterious  bubbles  from  below,  will, 
giant-like,  ingulf:  — 

But  hold  !  —  there's  a  fly  in. 

Now,  why  could  not  this  inconsiderate  monster  of 
the  air  be  content  with  the  whole  space  of  the  heavens 
round  about  him,  but  he  must  needs  plunge  into  this 
scalding  pool?  Did  he  scent  the  sugar?  or  was  it  a 
fascination  of  terror  from  the  heat?  "  Hadst  thou  my 
three  kingdoms  to  range  in,"  said  James  the  First  to  a 


BREAKFAST    CONTINUED.  95 

fly,  "and  yet  must  needs  get  into  my  e^ye?"  It  was 
a  good-natured  speech,  and  a  natural.  It  shows  that 
the  monarch  did  his  best  to  get  the  fly  out  again ;  at 
least,  we  hope  so  :  and  therefore  we  follow  the  royal 
example  in  extricating  the  little  winged  wretch,  who 
has  struggled  hard  with  his  unavailing  pinions,  and 
become  drenched  and  lax  with  the  soaking. 

He  is  on  the  dry  clean  cloth.  Is  he  dead?  No: 
the  tea  was  not  so  hot  as  we  supposed  it.  See  !  he 
gives  a  heave  of  himself  foi"ward  ;  then  endeavors  to 
drag  a  leg  up,  then  another ;  then  stops,  and  sinks 
down,  saturated  and  overborne  with  wateriness ;  and 
assuredly,  from  the  inmost  soul  of  him,  he  sighs  (if 
flies  sigh  ;  which  we  think  they  must  do  sometimes, 
after  attempting  in  vain,  for  half  an  hour,  to  get  through 
a  pane  of  glass).  However,  his  sigh  is  as  much 
mixed  with  joy  as  fright  and  astonishment  and  a  hor 
rible  hot  bath  can  let  it  be  ;  and  the  heat  has  not  been 
too  much  for  him.  A  similar  case  would  have  been 
worse  for  one  of  us  with  our  fleshy  bodies.  For,  see  ! 
after  dragging  himself  along  the  dry  cloth,  he  is  fairly 
on  his  legs :  he  smoothes  himself,  like  a  cat,  first 
one  side,  then  the  other,  only  with  his  legs  instead  of 
his  tongue  ;  then  rubs  the  legs  together,  partly  to  dis- 
engage them  of  their  burthen,  and  partly  as  if  he  con- 
gratulated himself  on  his  escape  ;  and  now,  finally, 
opening  his  wings  (beautiful  privilege  !  for  all  wings, 
except  the  bat's,  seem  beautiful,  and  a  privilege,  and 
fit  for  envy),  he  is  off"  again  into  the  air,  as  if  nothing 
had  happened. 

He  may  forget  it,  being  an  inconsiderate  and  giddy 
fly  ;  but  it  is  to  us,  be  it  remembered  by  our  conscience, 


96  THE    SEER. 

that  he  owes  all  which  he  is  hereafter  to  enjoy.  His 
su(5lions  of  sugar,  his  flights,  his  dances  on  the  win- 
dow, his  children,  yea,  the  whole  House  of  Fly,  as  far 
as  it  depends  on  him  their  ancestor,  will  be  owing  to 
us.  We  have  been  his  providence,  his  guardian  angel, 
the  invisible  being  that  rescued  him  without  his  know- 
ing it.  What  shall  we  add,  reader?  Wilt  thou  laugh, 
or  look  placid  and  content ;  hvunble,  and  yet  in  some 
sort  proud  withal,  and  not  consider  it  as  an  unbecoming 
meeting  of  ideas  in  these  our  most  mixed  and  reflective 
papers,  —  if  we  argue  from  i*escued  flies  to  rescued 
human  beings,  and  take  occasion  to  hope,  that,  in  the 
midst  of  the  struggling  endeavors  of  such  of  us  as  have 
to  wrestle  with  fault  or  misfortune,  invisible  pit}'  may 
look  down  with  a  helping  eye  upon  ourselves  ;  and 
that  what  it  is  humane  to  do  in  the  man,  it  is  divine 
to  do  in  that  which  made  humanity. 


97 


BREAKFAST    CONCLUDED. 
Tea  and  Coffee^  Milk^  Breads  Sc. 


^ra=^^,E  have  said  nothin<^  of  coffee  and  chocolate  at 
W\r<iA  breakfast,  though  a  good  example  has  been 
"^iSjttl  set  us  in  that  respedl  in  the  pleasant  pages  of 
Mr.  D'Israeli.  We  confined  ourselves  to  tea,  because 
it  is  the  staple  drink.  A  cheap  coflee,  however,  or 
imitation  of  it,  has  taken  place  of  tea  with  many ;  and 
the  poor  have  now  their  "  coffee-houses,"  as  the  rich 
used  to  have.  We  say  "  used,"  because  coffee-drinking 
in  such  places  among  the  rich  is  fast  going  out  in  con- 
sequence of  the  later  hours  of  dinner  and  the  attra6lions 
of  the  club-houses.  Coffee",  like  tea,  used  to  form  a 
refreshment  by  itself,  some  hours  after  dinner.  It  is 
now  taken  as  a  digester,  right  upon  that  meal  or  the 
wine  ;  and  sometimes  does  not  even  close  it ;  for  the 
digester  itself  is  digested  by  a  liqueur  of  some  sort, 
called  a  chasse-caf'e,  (coffee -chaser).  We  do  not, 
however,  pretend  to  be  learned  in  these  matters.  If 
we  find  ourselves  at  a  rich  table,  it  is  but  as  a  stranger 
in  the  land  to  all  but  its  humanities.  A  custom  may 
change  next  year,  and  find  us  as  ignorant  of  it  as  the 
footman  is  othenvise.* 

*  We  advert  to  the  knowledge  of  this  personage,  out  of  no  undue 
feeling  either  to^vards  himself,  or  those  whom  he  serves.  Both  classes 
comprise  natures  of  all  sorts  like  others.  But  fashion,  in  itself,  is  a  poor 
business,  everlastingly  shifting  its  customs  because  it  has  notliing  but 

VOL.  I.  9 


9^  THE    SEER. 

As  we  claim  the  familiar  intimacy  of  the  reader  in 
this  our  most  private  public  miscellany,  and  have  had 
it  cordially  responded  to  by  fair  and  brown,  (who  will 
not  cry  out  as  a  critic  did  against  Montaigne  for  say- 
ing he  liked  sherry,  "Who  the  devil  cares  whether  he 
liked  sherry  or  not?")  we  shall  venture  to  observe  in 
comment  upon  the  thousand  inaudible  remarks  on  this 
question  which  we  hear  on  all  sides  of  us,  that,  for 
our  parts,  we  like  cofiee  better  than  tea,  for  the  taste, 
but  tea  "  for  a  constancy ; "  and  one  after  the  other 
makes  a  "pretty"  variety  (as  Dr.  Johnson,  or  Mr. 
Pepys,  would  phrase  it ) .  To  be  perfect  in  point  of 
relish  (we  do  not  say  of  wholesomeness),  coffee  should 
be  strong  and  hot,  with  little  sugar  and  milk.  In  the 
East,  they  drink  it  without  either ;  which,  we  should 
think,  must  be  intolerable  to  any  palates  that  do  not 
begin  with  it  in  childhood,  or  are  not  in  want  of  as 
severe  stimulants  as  those  of  sailors ;  (though,  by  the 
way,  we  understand  that  tobacco-chewing  is  coming 
into  fashion  !)  It  has  been  drunk  after  this  mode  in 
some  parts  of  Europe  ;  but  the  public  have  nowhere 
(we  believe)  adopted  it.  The  favorite  way  of  taking 
it  as  a  meal,  abroad,  is  with  a  great  superfluity  of 
milk,  —  very  properly  called,  in  France,  cafe-au-lait^ 
coffee  to  the  milk.  One  of  the  pleasures  we  receive 
in  drinking  coffee  is,  that,  being  the  universal  drink  in 
the  East,  it  reminds  of  that  region  of  the  "  Arabian 
Nights ; "    as   smoking   does,   for   the    same    reason : 

change  to  go  upon ;  and  with  all  our  respect  for  good  people  who  wear 
its  liveries,  whether  master  or  footman,  we  own  we  have  no  sort  of  vene- 
ration for  the  phases  of  neckcloths  and  coats,  and  the  vicissitudes  of 
the  modes  of  dining. 


BREAKFAST    CONCLUDED.  99 

though  neither  of  these  refreshments,  which  are  now 
identified  with  Oriental  manners,  is  to  be  found  in  that 
enchanting  work.  They  had  not  been  discovered 
when  it  was  written.  The  drink  was  sherbet,  and  its 
accompaniments  cakes  and  fruit.  One  can  hardly 
fancy  wJiat  a  Turk  or  a  Persian  could  have  done 
without  coffee  and  a  pipe,  any  more  than  the  English 
ladies  and  gentlemen,  before  the  civil  wars,  without  tea 
for  breakfast.  As  for  chocolate,  its  richness,  if  made 
good,  renders  it  rather  a  food  than  a  drink.  Linnajus 
seems  to  have  been  fond  of  it ;  for  it  was  he,  we  be- 
lieve, who  gave  it  its  generic  name  of  Theobroma,  or 
food  of  the  gods.  It  is  said  to  be  extremely  nourish- 
ing,* but  heavy  for  weak  stomachs.  Cocoa  (cacao)  is 
a  lighter  kind  of  it,  made  of  the  shell  instead  of  the 
nut.  They  make  German  flutes  of  the  wood  of  the 
chocolate-tree.  An  Italian  wit,  who  flourished  when 
tea,  coftee,  and  chocolate  had  not  long  been  intro- 
duced into  his  country,  treats  them  all  three  with  great 
contempt,  and  no  less  humor  :  — 

"  Non  fia  gii,  che  il  Cioccolatte 
V'adoprassi,  ovvero  il  T6  : 
Medicine  cosi  fatte 
Non  saran  gianimai  per  me. 
Beverei  prima  il  veleno, 

*  "An  acquaintance,  on  whose  veracity  we  can  rely,"  says  Mr.  Phil- 
lips, in  liis  History  of  Fruits,  "  informed  us,  that,  during  tlie  retreat  of 
Napoleon's  army  from  tlie  North,  he  fortunately  liad  a  small  quantity  of 
little  chocolate  cakes,  in  his  pocket,  which  preserved  the  life  of  himself  and 
a  friend  for  several  days,  when  they  could  procure  no  other  food  what- 
ever, and  many  of  their  brother  officers  perished  for  want."  — Pcmariun 
Britannicum,  or  Historical  arul  Botanical  Account  of  Fruits  known  in  GrecU 
Britain.     Third  edition,  p.  67;  Colburn. 


lOO  THE    SEER. 

Che  un  bicchier  che  fosse  pieno 

Del  amaro  e  reo  Caffe. 

Col^  tra  gli  Arabi 

E  tra  i  Giannizzeri 

Liquor  si  ostico, 

Si  nero  e  torbido, 

Gli  schiavi  ingollino. 

GiCi  nel  Tartaro, 

Giii  neir  Erebo, 

L'empie  Belidi  rinventarono. 

E  Tesifone,  e  I'altre  Eurie, 

A  Proserpina  il  ministrarono. 

E  se  in  Asia  11  Musulmanno 

Se  lo  cionca  a  precipizio, 

Mostra  aver  poco  giudizio." 

Redi  :   Bacco  in  Toscana. 
"  Talk  of  chocolate  !  talk  of  tea ! 
Medicines  made,  ye  gods,  as  they  are. 
Are  no  medicines  made  for  me  ! 
I  woiild  sooner  take  to  poison 
Than  a  single  cup  set  eyes  on 
Of  that  bitter  and  guilty  stuff  ye 
Talk  of  by  the  name  of  coffee. 
Let  the  Arabs  and  the  Turks 
Count  it  'mongst  their  cruel  works  : 
Eoe  of  mankind,  black  and  turbid, 
Let  the  throats  of  slaves  absorb  it. 
Down  in  Tartarus, 
Down  in  Erebus, 

'Twas  the  detestable  Fifty  *  invented  it : 
The  Fm-ies  then  took  it. 
To  grind  and  to  cook  it ; 
And  to  Proserpina  all  three  presented  it. 
If  the  jMussulman  in  Asia 
Doats  on  a  beverage  so  unseemly, 
I  differ  with  the  man  extremely." 


*  The  daughters  of  Danaus,  who  killed  their  husbands. 


BREAKFAST    CONXI.UDED.  lOI 

These  vituperations,  however,  are  put  into  the 
mouth  of  the  god  of  wine  ;  who  may  justly  have  re- 
sented the  introduction  of — 

*'  The  cups 
Which  cheer,  but  not  inebriate." 

Chocolate  is  a  common  refreshment  in  Italy,  in  a 
solid  shape.  The  pastry-cooks  sell  sweetmeats  of  it, 
wrapped  up  in  little  papers  with  printed  mottos,  con- 
taining some  couplet  of  humor  or  gallantly.  They 
have  made  their  appearance  of  late  years  in  England, 
owing,  we  believe,  to  the  patronage  of  George  the 
Fourth,  who  is  said  to  have  given  an  order  to  a  Paris 
manufacturer,  to  tlie  value  of  five  hundred  pounds. 

Off,  ye  inferior  goods,  ye  comparative  sophistica- 
tions, perhaps  fleeting  fashions,  and  let  us  bethink 
ourselves  of  the  everlasting  virtues  of  beautiful  milk 
and  bread  ! 

"Milk,"  says  a  venerable  text,  "is  fit  for  children." 
It  is  too  often  unfit  for  men,  not  because  their  stom- 
achs are  stronger  than  those  of  children,  but  because 
they  are  weaker.  Causes  of  various  sorts,  sorrow,  too 
much  thinking,  dissipation,  shall  render  a  man  unable 
to  digest  the  good  wholesome  milk-bowl  that  delight- 
ed him  when  a  child.  He  must  content  himself  with 
his  experience,  and  with  turning  it  to  the  best  account, 
especially  for  others.  A  child  over  a  milk-bowl  is  a 
pleasant  objeCl.  He  seems  to  belong  to  ever}'  thing 
that  is  young  and  innocent,  —  tlie  morning,  the  fields, 
the  dairies.  And  no  fear  of  indigestion  has  he,  nor 
of  a  spoiled  complexion.  He  does  not  sit  up  till 
twelve  at  night;    nor  is  a  beauty  tight-lacing  herself; 


I02  THE    SEER. 

noi"  does  he  suspend  his  stomach  in  breathlessness 
with  writing  "  articles,"  and  thinking  of  good  and 
evil. 

Pleasant  object  also,  nevertheless,  is  the  milk-jug  to 
the  grown  man,  whether  sick  or  well,  provided  he 
have  "  an  eye."  White  milk  in  a  white  jug,  or  cream 
in  a  cream-colored,  presents  one  of  these  sympathies 
of  color,  which  are  sometimes  of  higher  taste  than  any 
contrast,  however  delicate.  Drummond  of  Hawthorn 
den  has  hit  it  with  a  relishing  pencil :  — 

"  In  petticoat  of  green, 
With  hair  about  her  cine,* 
Pliiliis,  beneath  an  oak, 
Sat  milking  lier  fair  flock : 

'Mongst  that  sweet  strained  moisture  (rare  delight) 
Her  hand  seemed  milk,  in  milk  it  was  so  white."  t 

Anacreon  beautifully  compares  a  finely  tinted  cheek 
to  milk  with  roses  in  it.  There  is  a  richness  of  color- 
ing, as  well  as  of  substance,  in  the  happy  scriptural 
designation  of  an  abundant  country,  —  "a  land  over- 
flowing with  milk  and  honey."  Milk  and  honey  suit 
admirably  on  the  breakfast-table.  Their  colors,  their 
simplicity,  their  country  associations,  all  harmonize. 
We  have  a  dairy  and  a  bee-hive  before  us,  —  the  breath 
of  cows,  and  the  buzzing  over  the  garden. 

By  the  way,  there  is  a  very  pretty  design,  in  Cooke's 
edition  of  Parnell's  Poems,  of  a  girl  milking  a  cow, 
by  Kirk,  a  young  Scotch  ai'tist  of  great  promise,  who 
died  prematurely,  which  has  wandered  to  the  teacups, 
and  is  to  be  found  on  some  of  the  cheapest  of  them. 

*  Eine,  een,  —  Scotch  and  old  English  for  eyes. 

t  See  Cunningham's  edition  of  Drummond,  lately  published,  p.  249. 


BREAKFAST    CONCLUDED.  I03 

We  happened  to  meet  with  it  in  Italy,  and  felt  all  our 
old  landscapes  before  us,  —  the  meadows,  tlie  trees, 
and  the  village  church  ;  all  which  the  artist  has  put 
into  the  background.  The  face  is  not  quite  so  good 
on  the  teacup  as  in  the  engraving.  In  tliat,  it  is  emi- 
nently beautiful ;  at  least,  in  the  work  now  before  us. 
We  cannot  answer  for  reprints.  It  is  one  of  those 
faces  of  sweetness  and  natural  refinement  which  are 
-to  be  met  with  in  the  humblest  as  well  as  highest 
classes,  \vhere  the  parentage  has  been  genial,  and  tlie 
bringing-up  not  discordant.  The  passage  illustrated 
is  the  pretty  exordium  of  the  poet's  eclogue  entitled 
"Health:"  — 

"Now  early  shepherds  o'er  the  meadow  pass, 
And  print  long  footsteps  in  the  glittering  grass  : 
The  cows,  neglectful  of  their  pasture,  stand, 
By  turns  obsequious  to  the  milker's  hand." 

Is  it  not  better  to  occupy  the  fancy  with  such  recol- 
lections as  these  over  a  common  breakfast,  than  to  be 
lamenting  that  we  have  not  an  uncommon  one  ?  which 
perhaps  also  would  do  us  a  mischief,  and,  for  the  gain 
of  a  little  tickling  of  the  palate,  take  health  and  good 
temper  out  of  us  for  the  rest  of  the  day.  Besides,  a 
palate  unspoilt  has  a  relish  of  milks  and  teas,  and 
other  simple  foods,  which  a  Nabob,  hot  from  his  mul- 
ligatawny and  his  megrims,  would  envy. 

We  look  upon  it  as  a  blessing,  for  our  parts,  that  we 
retain  a  liking  for  a  very  crust.  We  were  educated  at 
a  school  where  the  food  was  poorer  than  the  learn- 
ing ;  but  the  monks  had  lived  in  its  cloisters,  and  left 
us  a  spring  of  delicious  water.  Hence  we  have  the 
pleasure  of  enjoying  a  crust  of  bread  and  a  draught  of 


104  THE    SEER. 

water  to  this  day.  Oftentimes  have  we  "  spoilt  our 
dinner, "  when  it  has  not  come  up  in  time,  with  a 
"hunk"  of  bread,  choosing  rather  to  spoil  our  dinner 
than  our  spirits  ;  and  sweet  have  been  those  mouthfuls 
of  the  pure  staff'  of  life,  and  relishing  of  the  corn. 
To  our  apprehensions,  there  is  a  sort  of  white  taste  in 
bread,  analogous  to  the  color,  and  reminding  us  of  the 
white  milkiness  of  the  wheat.  We  have  a  respedl,' 
both  of  self-love  and  sympathy,  with  the  poor  light- 
hearted  player  in  Gil  Bias,  who  went  singing  along 
the  countiy  road,  dipping  his  crust  in  the  stream. 
Sorrow  had  no  hold  on  him,  with  ninety-nine  out  of 
her  hundred  arms.  Carelessly  along  went  he,  safe 
from  her  worst  handling,  in  his  freedom  from  wants. 
She  might  have  peered  out  of  her  old  den,  and  grown 
softened  at  his  chant.  But  he  went  alone  too  :  he  had 
none  to  care  for ;  which  was  a  pleasure  also.  It 
would  be  none  to  us,  —  one  thing  provided.  There 
are  pains,  when  you  get  heartily  acquainted  with  them, 
which  outvalue  the  reverse  pleasures.  Besides,  we 
must  all  get  through  our  tasks  as  manfully  and  cheer- 
fully as  we  can  ;  losing,  if  possible,  no  handsome  plea- 
sure by  the  vs^ay ;  and  sustaining  ourselves  by  the 
thought,  that  all  will  be  for  the  best,  provided  we  do 
our  best  for  all.  It  is  not  the  existence  of  pain  that 
spoils  the  relish  of  the  world  ;  but  the  not  knowing 
how  to  make  the  most  of  pleasures,  and  thereby  redu- 
cing the  pains  to  their  most  reasonable  size  and  their 
most  useful  account. 

You  may  make  a  landscape,  if  you  will,  out  of  your 
breakfast-table,  better  than  Mr.  Kirk's  pitSlure.  Here, 
wheie  the  bread  stands,  is  its  father,  the  field  of  cum, 


BREAKFAST  CONCLUDED.  I05 

glowing  in  the  sun,  cut  by  the  tawny  reapers,  and  pre- 
senting a  path  for  lovers.  The  village  church  (where 
tliey  are  to  be  married)  is  on  a  leafy  slope  on  one 
side ;  and  on  the  other  is  a  woody  hill,  with  fountains. 
There,  far  over  the  water  (for  this  basin  of  water, 
with  island  lumps  of  butter  in  it,  shall  be  a  sea),  are 
our  friends  the  Chinese,  picking  the  leaves  of  their 
tea-trees,  —  a  beautiful  plant;  or  the  Arabs  plucking 
the  berries  of  the  coflce-tree,  —  a  still  more  beautif  :1 
one,  with  a  profusion  of  white  blossoms,  and  an  odor 
like  jessamine.  For  the  sugar  (instead  of  a  bitterer 
thought,  not  so  harmonious  to  our  purpose,  but  not  to 
be  forgotten  at  due  times),  you  may  think  of  Waller's 
Saccharissa  ;  *  so  named  from  the  Latin  word  for  sugar 
{saccha7-ui)i)^  —  a  poor  compliment  to  the  lady:  but 
the  lady  shall  sweeten  the  sugar,  instead  of  the  sugar 
doing  honor  to  the  lady ;  and  she  was  a  very  knowing 
as  well  as  beautiful  woman,  and  saw  farther  into  love 
and  sweetness  than  the  sophisticate  court-poet ;  so  she 
would  not  have  him,  notwithstanding  his  sugary  verses, 
but  married  a  higher  natiu'e. 

Bread,  milk,  and  butter  are  of  venerable  antiquity. 
They  taste  of  the  morning  of  the  world.     Jael,  to  en- 

*  Saccharissa  was  l.ady  Dorothy  Sidney,  of  the  preat  and  truly  noble 
family  of  the  Sidneys.  She  married  a  sincere,  ati'ectionate,  and  courage- 
ous man,  Robert  Spencer,  Earl  of  Sunderland,  who  was  killed,  four  years 
afterwards,  in  a  cause  for  which  he  thoujxht  himself  bound  to  quit  the 
arms  of  the  woman  he  loved.  Her  second  husband  was  of  the  Smythe 
Family.  In  her  old  ape,  meeting  Waller  at  a  card-table.  Lady  Sunder- 
land asked  him,  in  good-humored  and  not  ungrateful  recollection  of  his 
fine  verses,  when  he  would  write  any  more  such  upon  her;  to  which  the 
"polite"  poet,  either  from  spite,  or  want  of  address,  had  the  poverty 
of  spirit  to  repl}',  "  Oh !  madam,  when  your  ladyship  is  as  young 
again." 


Io6  THE    SEER. 

tertain  her  guest,  "brought  forth  butter  in  a  lordly 
dish."  Homer  speaks  of  a  nation  of  milk-eaters, 
whom  he  calls  the  "  justest  of  men. "  To  "  break 
bread  "  was  from  time  immemorial  the  Eastern  signal 
of  hospitality  and  confidence.  We  need  not  add  rea- 
sons for  respedling  it,  still  more  reverend.  Bread  is 
the  "  staff'  of  life  "  throughout  the  greater  part  of  the 
civilized  world ;  and  so  accordant  is  its  taste  with  the 
human  palate,  that  Natru-e,  in  some  places,  seems  to 
have  grown  it  ready-made  on  pui'pose,  in  the  shape  of 
the  bread  fruit-tree.  There  is  also  a  milk-tree :  but 
we  nowhere  find  a  carniferous  or  flesh-bearing  tree  ; 
nor  has  the  city  yet  been  discovered  in  which  "  the 
pigs  run  through  the  sh^eets  ready  roasted,  with  knives 
and  forks  stuck  in  their  sides."  Civilized  nations  eat 
meat;  but  they  can  also  do  without  it,  living  upon 
milk,  grain,  and  vegetables  alone,  as  in  India.  None 
but  savasres  live  without  those.  And  common  break- 
fasts,  without  any  meat  in  them,  have  this  advantage 
over  others,  that  you  can  recoiled:  them  without  any 
sort  of  doubt  or  disgust ;  nor  are  their  leavings  of- 
fensive to  the  eye.  It  is  one  of  the  perplexities  of 
man's  present  condition,  that  he  is  at  once  carnivorous, 
and  has  very  good  reason  for  being  so,  and  relishing 
his  chop  and  his  steak,  and  yet  cannot  always  reconcile 
it  to  the  rest  of  his  nature.  He  would  fain  eat  his 
lamb,  and  pity  it  too  ;  which  is  puzzling.  However, 
there  are  worse  perplexities  than  these  ;  and  the  lambs 
lead  pleasant  flowery  lives  while  they  do  live.  Nor 
could  they  have  had  this  taste  of  existence,  if  they 
were  not  bi-ed  for  the  table.  Let  us  all  do  our  best  to 
get  the  world  forward,  and  we  shall  see.     We  shall 


BREAKFAST  CONCLUDED.  IO7 

either  do  away  all  we  think  wrong,  or  see  better  rea- 
sons for  thinking  it  right.  Meanwhile,  let  us  dine  and 
breakfast,  like  good-humored  people  ;  and  not  "  quar- 
rel with  our  bread  and  butter." 


io8 


ANACREON. 


ilT  has  been  said  of  ladies  when  they  write 
letters,  tliat  they  put  their  minds  in  their 
postscripts,  —  let  out  the  real  objedl  of  their 
writing,  as  if  it  were  a  second  thought,  or  a  thing 
comparatively  inditl'erent.  You  very  often  know  the 
amount  of  a  man's  knowledge  of  an  author  by  the  re- 
mark he  makes  on  him  after  he  has  made  the  one 
which  he  thinks  proper  and  authorized.  As  for 
example,  you  will  mention  Anacreon  to  your  friend 
A.  in  a  tone  which  implies  that  you  wish  to  know  his 
opinion  of  him  ;  and  he  shall  say,  — 

"Delightful  poet,  Anacreon! — breathes  the  very 
spirit  of  love  and  wine.     His  Greek  is  very  easy." 

All  the  real  opinion  of  this  gentleman  respedting 
Anacreon  lies  in  what  he  says  in  these  last  words. 
His  Greek  is  easy ;  that  is,  our  scholar  has  had  less 
tfouble  in  learning  to  i^ead  him  than  with  other  Greek 
poets.  This  is  all  he  really  thinks  or  feels  about  the 
"  delightful  Anacreon." 

So  with  B.  You  imply  a  question  to  B.  in  the 
same  tone  ;  and  he  answers,  "Anacreon  !  Oh  !  a  most 
delightful  poet,  Anacreon,  —  charming ;  all  love  and 
wine.      The  best  edition  oj"  hi?n  is  Spaletti's."" 

This  is  all  that  B.  knows  of  Anacreon's  "  love  and 
wine."     "  The  best  edition  of  it  is  Spaletti's  ; "  that  is 


ANACREON.  IO9 

to  say,  Spaletti  is  the  Anacreon  wine-merchant  most 
in  I'epute. 

So  again  with  C.  as  to  his  knowledge  of  the  transla- 
tions of  the  "  delightful  poet." 

"  Translations  of  Anacreon  !  Delightful  poet !  —  too 
delightful,  too  natural  and  peculiar,  to  be  translated ; 
simplicity,  naivete.  Fawkes's  translation  is  elegant ; 
Mooi-e's  very  elegant,  but  diffuse.  Nobody  can  trans- 
late Anacreon.  Impossible  to  give  any  idea  of  the 
exquisite  simplicity  of  the  Greek." 

This  gentleman  has  never  read  Cowley's  transla- 
tions from  Anacreon ;  and,  if  he  had,  he  would  not 
have  known  which  part  of  them  was  truly  Anacreon- 
tic, and  which  not.  He  makes  up  his  mind  that  it  is 
impossible  to  give  "  any  idea  of  the  exquisite  simplicity 
of  the  Greek ; "  meaning,  by  that  assertion,  that  he 
himself  cannot,  and  therefore  nobody  else  can.  His 
sole  idea  of  Anacreon  is,  that  he  is  a  writer  famous  for 
certain  beauties  which  it  is  impossible  to  translate. 
As  to  supposing  that  the  spirit  of  Anacreon  may  occa- 
sionally be  met  with  in  poets  who  have  not  translated 
him,  and  that  you  m.ay  thus  get  an  idea  of  him  without 
recurrinsf  to  the  Greek  at  all,  this  is  what  never  en- 
tered  his  head  :  for  Nature  has  nothing  to  do  with  his 
head  ;  it  is  only  books  and  translations.  Love,  na- 
tiu-e,  myrtles,  roses,  wine,  have  existed  ever  since  the 
days  of  Anacreon  ;  yet  he  thinks  nobody  ever  chanced 
to  look  at  these  things  with  the  same  eyes. 

Thus  there  is  one  class  of  scholars  who  have  no 
idea  of  Anacreon,  except  that  he  is  easy  to  read  ;  an- 
other, who  confine  their  notions  of  him  to  a  particular 
edition  ;    and  a  third,  who  look  upon  him  as  consisting 


no  THE    SEER. 

in  a  certain  elegant  impossibility  to  translate.  There 
are  more  absurdities  of  pretended  scholarship,  on  this 
and  all  other  writers,  which  the  truly  learned  laugh  at, 
and  know  to  be  no  scholarship  at  all.  Our  present 
business  is  to  attempt  to  give  some  idea  of  what  they 
think  and  feel  with  regard  to  Anacreon,  and  what  all 
intelligent  men  would  think  and  feel  if  they  under- 
stood Greek  terms  for  natural  impressions.  To  be 
unaffedtedly  charmed  with  the  loveliness  of  a  cheek, 
and  the  beauty  of  a  flower,  are  the  first  steps  to  a 
knowledge  of  Anacreon.  Those  are  the  grammar  of 
his  Greek,  and  pretty  nearly  the  dictionary  too. 

Little  is  known  of  the  life  of  Anacreon.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  he  was  born  among  the  richer 
classes  ;  that  he  was  a  visitor  at  the  courts  of  princes  ; 
and  that,  agreeably  to.  a  genius  which  was  great 
enough,  and  has  given  enough  delight  to  the  world,  to 
warrant  such  a  devotion  of  itself  to  its  enjoyments,  he 
kept  aloof  from  the  troubles  of  his  time,  or  made  the 
best  of  them,  and  tempted  them  to  spare  his  door.  It 
may  be  concluded  of  him,  that  his  existence  (so  to 
speak)  was  passed  in  a  garden  :  for  he  lived  to  be  old ; 
which,  in  a  man  of  his  sensibility  and  indolence,  im- 
plies a  life  pretty  free  from  care.  It  is  said  that  he 
died  at  the  age  of  eighty-five,  and  was  then  choked 
with  a  grape-stone  ;  a  fate  generally  thought  to  be  a 
little  too  allegorical  to  be  likely.  He  was  born  on  the 
coast  of  Ionia  (part  of  the  modern  Turkey),  at  Teos, 
a  town  south  of  Smyrna,  in  the  midst  of  a  country  of 
wine,  oil,  and  sunshine ;  and  thus  partook  strongly 
of  those  influences  of  climate  which  undoubtedly  oc- 
casion varieties  in  genius,  as  in  other  produ6lions  of 


ANACREON.  Ill 

Nature.  As  to  the  obje<5lionable  parts  of  his  morals, 
they  belonged  to  his  age,  and  have  no  essential  or  in- 
separable connection  with  his  poetry.  We  are,  there- 
fore, glad  to  be  warranted  in  saying  nothing  about 
them.  All  the  objedlionable  passages  might  be  taken 
out  of  Anacreon,  and  he  would  still  be  Anacreon ; 
and  the  most  vii'tuous  might  read  him  as  safely  as 
they  read  of  flowers  and  butterflies.  Cowley,  one  of 
the  best  of  men,  translated  some  of  his  most  Anac- 
reontic poems.  We  profess  to  breathe  his  air  in  the 
same  spirit  as  Cowley,  and  shall  assuredly  bring  no 
poison  out  of  it  to  our  readers.  The  truly  virtuous 
are  as  safe  in  these  pages  as  they  can  be  in  their  own 
homes  and  gardens.  But  cheerfulness  is  a  part  of  our 
religion  ;  and  we  choose  to  omit  not  even  grapes  in  it, 
any  more  than  Nature  has  omitted  them. 

Imagine,  then,  a  good-humored  old  man,  with  silver 
locks,  but  a  healthy  and  cheerful  face,  sitting  in  the 
delightful  climate  of  Smyrna,  under  his  vine  or  his 
olive,  with  his  lute  by  his  side,  a  cup  of  his  native 
wine  before  him,  and  a  pretty  peasant  girl  standing 
near  him,  who  has  perhaps  brought  him  a  basket  of 
figs,  or  a  bottle  of  milk  corked  with  vine  leaves,  and 
to  whom  he  is  giving  a  rose,  or  jDrctending  to  make 
love. 

For  we  are  not,  with  the  gross  literality  of  dull  or 
vicious  understandings,  to  take  for  granted  every  thing 
that  a  poet  says  on  all  occasions,  especially  when  he  is 
old.  It  is  mere  gratuitous  and  suspicious  assumption 
in  critics  who  tell  vis,  that  such  men  as  Anacreon 
passed  "whole  lives"  in  the  indulgence  of  "every  ex- 
cess and  debauchery."     They  must  have  had,  in  tlie 


113  THE    SErn. 

first  place,  prodigious  constitutions,  if  they  did,  to  live 
to  be  near  ninety ;  and,  secondly,  it  does  not  follow, 
that,  because  a  poet  speaks  like  a  poet,  it  has  therefore 
taken  such  a  vast  deal  to  give  him  a  taste,  greater  than 
other  men's,  for  what  he  enjoys.  Redi,  the  author  of 
the  most  famous  bacchanalian  poem  in  Italy,  di'ank 
little  but  water.  St.  Evremond,  the  French  wit,  an 
epicure  professed,  was  too  good  an  epicure  not  to  be 
temperate  and  preserve  his  relish.  Debauchees,  who 
are  fox-hunters,  live  to  be  old,  because  they  take  a 
great  deal  of  exercise  ;  but  it  is  not  likely  that  ina6tive 
men  should,  unless  they  combined  a  relish  for  pleasure 
with  some  very  particular  kinds  of  temperance. 

There  is  generally,  in  Anacreon's  earnest,  a  touch 
of  something  which  is  not  in  earnest,  —  which  plays 
with  the  subje6t,  as  a  good-humored  old  man  plays 
with  children.  There  is  a  perpetual  smile  on  his  face, 
between  enthusiasm  and  levity.  He  truly  likes  the 
obje6ts  he  looks  upon  (otherwise  he  could  not  have 
painted  them  truly),  and  he  will  retain  as  much  of  his 
youthful  regard  for  them  as  he  can.  He  does  retain 
much,  and  he  pleasantly  pretends  more.  He  loves 
wine,  beauty,  flowers,  pictures,  sculptures,  dances, 
birds,  brooks,  kind  and  open  natures,  every  thing  that 
can  be  indolently  enjoyed ;  not,  it  must  be  confessed, 
with  the  deepest  innermost  perception  of  their  beauty 
(which  is  more  a  characteristic  of  modern  poetry  than 
of  ancient,  owing  to  the  diffei^ence  of  their  creeds),  but 
with  the  most  elegant  of  material  perceptions,  —  of 
what  lies  in  the  surface  and  tangibility  of  objedls,  — 
and  with  an  admirable  exemption  from  whatsoever 
does  not  belong  to  them,  —  from  all  false  taste  and  die 


AXACRKOX.  113 

mixture  of  impertinences.  With  regard  to  the  rest,  he 
had  all  the  sentiment  which  good-nature  implies,  and 
nothing  more. 

Upon  those  two  points  of  luxury  and  good  taste,  the 
character  of  Anacreon,  as  a  poet,  wholly  turns.  He 
is  tlie  poet  of  indolent  enjoyment,  in  the  best  possible 
taste,  and  with  the  least  possible  trouble.  He  will 
enjoy  as  much  as  he  can  ;  but  he  will  take  no  more 
pains  about  it  than  he  can  help,  not  even  to  praise  it. 
He  would  probably  talk  about  it  half  the  day  long ; 
for  talking  would  cost  him  nothing,  and  it  is  natural  to 
old  age  :  but,  when  he  comes  to  write  about  it,  he  will 
say  no  more  than  the  impulse  of  the  moment  incites 
hiin  to  put  down ;  and  he  will  sa\'  it  in  the  very  best 
manner,  both  because  the  truth  of  his  perception  re- 
quires it,  and  because  an  affe6ted  style  and  superfluous 
words  would  give  him  trouble.  He  would,  it  is  true, 
take  just  so  much  trouble,  if  necessary,  as  should 
make  his  style  completely  suitable  to  his  truth  ;  and,  if 
his  poems  were  not  so  short,  it  would  be  difficult  to  a 
modern  writer  to  think  that  they  could  flow  into  such 
excessive  ease  and  spirit  as  they  do,  if  he  had  not 
taken  the  greatest  pains  to  make  them.  But,  besides 
his  impulses,  he  had  the  habit  of  a  life  upon  him. 
Hence  the  compositions  of  Anacreon  are  remarkable, 
above  all  others  in  the  world,  for  being  "  short  and 
sweet."  They  are  the  very  thing,  and  nothing  more, 
required  by  the  occasion ;  for  the  animal  spirits, 
which  would  be  natiaral  in  other  men,  and  might  lead 
them  into  superfluities,  would  not  be  equally  so  to  one 
who  adds  the  indolence  of  old  age  to  the  niceties  of 
natural  taste :  and  therefore,  as  people  boast,  on  other 

VOL.   I.  10 


114  "^^^^    SEER. 

occasions,  of  calling  things  by  their  right  names,  and 
"  a  spade,  a  spade  ; "  so,  when  Anacreon  describes  a 
beauty  or  a  banquet,  or  wishes  to  convey  his  sense  to 
you  of  a  flower,  or  a  grasshopper,  or  a  head  of  hair, 
there  it  is,  as  true  and  as  free  from  every  thing  foreign 
to  it  as  the  thing  itself. 

Look  at  a  myrtle-tree  or  a  hyacinth,  inhale  its  fra- 
grance, admire  its  leaves  or  blossom,  then  shut  your 
eyes,  and  tliink  how  exquisitely  the  myrtle-tree  is 
ivhat  it  is,  and  how  beautifully  unlike  every  thing 
else,  —  how  pure  in  simple  yet  cultivated  grace. 
Such  is  one  of  the  odes  of  Anacreon. 

This  may  not  be  a  very  scholastic  description ;  but 
we  wish  it  to  be  something  better,  and  we  write 
to  genial  apprehensions.  We  would  have  them  con- 
ceive a  taste  of  Anacreon  as  they  would  that  of  his 
grapes,  and  know  him  by  his  flavor. 

It  inust  be  conceded  to  one  of  our  would-be  scholar- 
ly friends  above  mentioned,  that  there  is  no  translation, 
not  even  of  any  one  ode  of  Anacreon's,  in  the  English 
language,  which  gives  you  an  entirely  right  notion 
of  it.  The  commonplace  elegances  of  Fawkes  (who 
was  best  when  he  was  humblest,  as  in  his  ballad  of 
"Dear  Tom,  this  brown  jug")  are  out  of  the  question. 
They  are  as  bad  as  Hoole's  "  Ariosto."  Mr.  Moore's 
translation  is  masterly  of  its  kind :  but  its  kind  is  not 
Anacreon's ;  as  he  would,  perhaps,  be  tlie  first  to  say, 
now ;  for  it  was  a  work  of  his  youth.  It  is  too  Ori- 
ental, difflise,  and  ornamented  ;  an  Anacreon  in  Persia. 
The  best  English  translations  are  those  which  Cowley 
has  given  us,  although  diftliseness  is  their  fault  also ; 
but  they  have  more  of  Anacreon's  real  animal  spirits, 


AXACREON.  115 

and  his  contentment  with  obje6ts  themselves,  apart 
from  what  he  can  say  about  them.  Cowley  is  most  in 
earnest.  He  thinks  most  of  what  his  original  was 
thinking,  and  least  of  what  is  expelled  from  his 
translator. 

We  will  give  a  specimen  of  him  presently.  But  it 
is  not  to  be  supposed  that  we  have  no  passages  in  the 
writings  of  English  poets  that  convey  to  an  unlearned 
reader  a  thorough  idea  of  Anacreon.  Prose  cannot  do 
it,  though  far  better  sometimes  as  a  translation  of 
verse  than  verse  itself,  since  the  latter  may  destroy  the 
original  both  in  spirit  and  medium  too.  But  prose, 
as  a  translation  of  verse,  wants,  of  necessity,  that 
sustained  enthusiasm  of  poetry,  which  presents  the 
perpetual  charm  of  a  triumph  over  the  obstacle  of 
metre,  and  turns  it  to  an  accompaniment  and  a  dance. 
Readers,  therefore,  must  not  expect  a  right  idea  of 
Anacreon  from  the  best  prose  versions  ;  though,  keep- 
ing in  mind  their  inevitable  deficiencies,  thev  may  be 
of  great  service  and  pleasure  to  him,  especially  if  he 
can  superadd  the  vivacity  which  they  want.  And  he 
is  pretty  sure  not  to  meet  in  them  with  any  of  the  im- 
pertinences of  the  translations  in  verse  ;  that  is  to  say 
(not  to  use  the  word  offensively),  any  of  the  matter 
which  does  not  belo7ig  to  the  original :  for  an  imperti- 
nence, in  the  literal,  unoflensive  sense  of  the  word, 
signifies  that  which  does  not  belong  to  or  form  a  part 
of  any  thing.* 

The  following  passage  about  Cupid  bathing  and 
pruning  his  wings  under  the  eyes  of  a  weeping  beauty 

*  The  reader  will  be  good  enough  to  bear  in  mind,  that  this  paper  oa 
Anacreon  was  originally  addressed  to  the  uneducated. 


Il6  T}IE    SEER. 

(the  produdion  either  of  Spenser,  or  of  a  friend  wor- 
thy of  him)  appears  to  us  to  be  thoroughly  Anacreon- 
tic in  one  resped:,  and  without  contradidion  ;  that  is 
to  say,  in  clearness  and  delicacy  of  fancy :  — 

"  The  blinded  archer  boy,  like  larke  in  shower  of  raine, 
Sat  bathing  of  his  wings  ;  and  glad  the  time  did  spend 
Under  those  cristall  drops,  which  fell  from  her  faire  eyes, 
And,  at  their  brightest  beams,  him  proyned  in  lovely  wise." 

Milton's  address  to  May-morning  would  have  been 
Anacreontic  but  for  a  certain  something  of  heaviness 
or  stateliness  which  he  has  mingled  with  it,  and  the 
difierential  changes  of  the  measure :  — 

"Now  the  bright  morning-star,  day's  harbinger, 
Comes  dancing  from  the  east,  and  leads  with  her 
The  flowery  May,  who  from  her  green  lap  throws 
The  yellow  cowslip  and  the  pale  primrose." 

The  danci?2g  of  the  star,  the  leading  flowery  May, 
the  green  lap,  and  the  straightforward  simple  style  of 
the  words,  are  all  Anacreontic  ;  but  the  measure  is  too 
stately  and  serious.  The  poet  has  instindlively  changed 
it  in  the  lines  that  follow  these,  which  are  altogether 
in  the  taste  of  our  author :  — 

"  Hail,  bounteous  I\Iay !  that  dost  inspire 
Mirth  and  youth  and  warm  desire : 
Woods  and  groves  are  of  thy  dressing ; 
Hill  and  dale  doth  boast  thy  blessing." 

Then  a  long  line  comes  too  seriously  in  :  — 

"  Thus  we  salute  thee  with  our  early  song, 
And  welcome  thee,  and  wish  thee  long." 

We  will  here  obser\'e  by  the  way,  that  Anacreon's 
measures  are  always  short  and  dancing.     One  of  these 


ANACREOX.  1 1  7 

somewhat  resembles  the  shortei"   ones   of  the   above 

poem  :  — 

"  Woods  and  groves  are  of  thy  dressing ; 
Hill  and  dale  doth  boast  thy  blessing." 

Every  syllable,  obsen'e,  is  pronounced  :  — 

"  Dote  nioi  lyren  Homerou 
Phonies  aneuthe  chordes." 

The  o's  in  the  second  line  of  the  next  are  all  pro- 
nounced long,  as  in  the  word  rose :  — 

"  Hyacinthine  me  rhabdo 
Chalepos  Eros  badizon 
Ekeleuse  syntrochazein." 

There  is  a  poet  of  the  time  of  Charles  the  First, 
Herrick,  who  is  generally  called,  but  on  little  grounds, 
the  English  Anacreon,  though  he  now  and  then  has 
no  unhappy  imitation  of  his  manner.  We  wish  we 
had  him  by  us,  to  give  a  specimen.  There  is  one 
beautiful  song  of  his  (which  has  been  exquisitely 
translated,  by  the  way,  into  Latin,  by  one  of  the  now 
leading  political  writers*),  the  opening  measure  of 
which,  that  is,  of  the  first  couplet,  is  the  same  as  the 
other  common  measure  of  Anacreon  :  — 

"  Their  eyes  the  glowworms  lend  thee ; 
The  shooting  stars  attend  thee ; 
And  the  elves  also, 
Whose  little  eyes  glow 
Like  the  sparks  of  fire,  befriend  thee." 


*  See  a  periodical  publication  in  two  volumes  called  the  "  Ileflecfor," 
which  contained  some  of  the  first  public  essays  of  several  eminent  living 
writers. 


Il8  THE    SEER. 

"  He  ge  melaina  pinei, 
Pinei  de  dendre  auten, 
Pinei  thalassa  d 'auras, 
Ho  d'Helios  thalassan." 

Suckling,  a  charming  off-hand  writer,  who  stood  be- 
tween the  days  of  Elizabeth  and  the  Stuarts,  and 
partook  of  the  sentiment  of  the  one  and  the  levity  of 
the  other,  would  have  translated  Anacreon  admirably. 
And  had  Anacreon  been  a  fine  gentleman  of  the  age 
of  Charles  the  First,  instead  of  an  ancient  Greek,  he 
would  have  written  Suckling's  ballad  on  a  wedding. 
There  is  a  touch  in  it,  describing  a  beautiful  pair  of 
lips,  which,  though  perfe6lly  original,  is  in  the  highest 
Anacreontic  taste  :  — 

"  Her  lips  were  red ;  and  one  was  thin, 
Compared  with  that  was  next  her  chin  : 
Some  bee  had  stmig  it  newly." 

Beauty,  the  country,  a  pi(5ture,  the  taste  and  scent  of 
honey,  are  all  in  that  passage  ;  and  yet  Anacreon,  in 
the  happy  comprehensiveness  of  his  words,  has  beaten 
it.  The  thought  has  become  somewhat  hackneyed 
since  his  time,  —  the  hard  though  unavoidable  fate  of 
many  an  exquisite  fancy ;  yet  stated  in  his  simple 
words,  and  accompanied  with  an  image,  the  very 
perfe6lion  of  eloquence,  it  may  still  be  read  with  a 
new  delight.  In  a  direction  to  a  painter  about  a  por- 
trait of  his  mistress,  he  tells  him  to  give  her  "  a  lip  like 
Persuasion!  s^'  — 

"  Prokaloumenon  philema ; " 
"  Provoking  a  kiss." 

The  word  is  somewhat  spoilt  in  English  by  the  very 


AXACREON.  119 

piquancy  which  time  has  added  to  it ;  because  it 
makes  it  look  less  in  earnest,  too  much  like  the  com- 
mon language  of  gallantly.  But  p)-ovoking  literally 
raeans  calling- yor^  asking,  —  forcing  us,  in  common 
gratitude  for  our  delight,  to  give  what  is  so  exquisitely 
deserved ;  and,  in  that  better  sense,  the  word  pro- 
vokitig  is  still  the  right  one. 

Shakespeare's  serenade  in  "  Cymbeline  "  might  have 
been  written  by  Anacreon,  except  that  he  would  have 
given  us  some  luxurious  image  of  a  young  female, 
instead  of  the  word  "  lady  :  "  — 

"  Hark,  hark  !  the  lark  at  heaven's  gate  sings ; 

And  Phoebus  'gins  arise, 
His  steeds  to  water  at  those  springs 

On  chaliced  flowers  that  lies  ; 
And  winking  mary-buds  begin 

To  ope  their  golden  eyes  :  * 

With  every  thing  that  pretty  been, 

My  lady  sweet,  arise." 

Lilly,  a  writer  of  Shakespeare's  age,  who  perverted 
a  naturally  fine  genius  to  the  purposes  of  conceit  and 
fashion,  has  a  little  poem  beginning, — 

"  Cupid  and  my  Campaspe  played 
At  cards  for  kisses,"  — 

which  Anacreon  might  have  written,  had  cards  ex- 
isted in  his  time.  But  we  have  it  not  by  us  to  quote. 
Many  passages  in  Burns's  songs  are  Anacreontic, 
inasmuch  as  they  are  simple,  enjoying,  and  full  of  the 
elegance  of  the  senses ;  but  they  have  more  passion 
than  the  old  Greek's,  and  less  of  his  perfection  of 
grace.  Anacreon  never  suffers  but  from  old  age  or 
the  want  of  wine.     Burns  sutlers  desperately,  and  as 


I30  THE    SEER. 

(iesperately  struggles  with  his  suffering,  till  we  know 
not  which  is  the  greater,  he  or  his  passion.  There  is 
nothing  of  this  robust-handed  work  in  the  delicate 
Ionian.  Nature  is  strong  and  sovereign  in  him,  but 
always  in  accommodating  unison  with  his  indolence 
and  old  age.  He  says  that  he  is  transpoiied,  and  he 
is  so  ;  but  somehow  you  always  fancy  him  in  the  same 
place,  never  quite  carried  out  of  himself. 

Of  Anacreon's  drinking-songs,  we  do  not  find  it  so 
easy  to  give  a  counterpart  notion  from  the  English 
poets,  who,  though  of  a  drinking  country,  have  not 
exhibited  much  of  the  hilarity  of  wine.  Their  port  is 
heavy,  compared  with  Anacreon's  Teian.  Shake- 
speare's — 

"  Plurapy  Bacchus  with  pink  eyne  "  — 

will  not  do  at  all ;  for  Anacreon's  Bacchus  is  the  per- 
fection of  elegant  mytholog}^,  particularly  cotnme  II 
faut  in  the  waist,  a  graceful  dancer,  and  beautiful  as 
Cheerfulness.  In  all  Anacreon's  manners,  and  turn 
of  thinking,  you  recognize  what  is  called  "  the  gen- 
tleman." He  evidently  had  a  delicate  hand.  The 
"cares"  that  he  talks  about  consisted  in  his  not  having 
had  cares  enough.  .  A  turn  at  the  plough,  or  a  few 
wants,  would  have  given  him  pathos.  He  would  not 
have  thought  all  the  cares  of  life  to  consist  in  its  being 
short  and  swift,  and  taking  him  away  from  his  plea- 
sures. If  he  partook,  however,  of  the  effeminacy  of 
his  caste,  he  was  superior  to  its  love  of  wealth  and 
domination.  The  sole  business  of  his  life,  he  said,  was 
to  drink  and  sing,  perfume  his  beard,  and  crown  his 
head  with  roses ;    and  he  appears  to  have  stuck  reli- 


ANACREON.  121 

giously  to  his  profession.  "  Business,"  he  thought, 
"  must  be  attended  to."  Plato  calls  him  "  wise  ; "  as 
Milton  calls  the  luxurious  Spenser  "  sage  and  serious." 
The  greatest  poets  and  philosophers  sometimes  "  let 
the  cat  out  of  the  bag,"  when  they  are  tired  of  conven- 
tional secrets. 

"  This  bottle's  the  sun  of  our  table, 
His  beams  are  rosy  wine ; 
We,  planets  that  are  not  able 
Without  his  help  to  shine." 

These  verses  of  Sheridan's  are  Anacreontic.  So  is 
that  couplet  of  Burns's,  —  exquisitely  so,  except  for  the 
homeliness  of  the  last  word  :  — 

"  Care,  mad  to  see  a  man  so  happy, 
E'en  drowned  liimself  amidst  the  nappy." 

One  taste,  like  this,  of  the  wine  of  the  feelings,  gives 
a  better  idea  of  Anacreon's  drinking-songs  than  hun- 
dreds of  ordinary  specimens. 

But  we  must  hasten  to  close  this  long  article  with 
the  best  Anacreontic  piece  of  translation  we  are  ac- 
quainted with,  —  that  of  the  famous  ode  to  the  grass- 
hopper, by  Cowley,  Anacreon's  grasshopper,  it  is  to 
be  observed,  is  not  properly  a  grasshopper,  but  the 
Tettix^  as  the  Greeks  called  it  from  its  cry,  —  the 
Cicada  of  the  Roman  poet,  and  Cicala  of  modern 
Italy,  where  it  sings  or  cricks  in  the  trees  in  summer- 
time, as  the  grasshopper  does  with  us  in  the  grass. 
It  is  a  species  of  beetle.  But  Cowley  very  properly 
translated  his  Greek  insedt,  as  well  as  ode,  into  Eng- 
lish ;  knowing  well  that  the  poet's  objedl  is  to  be  sym- 
pathized with,  and  that,  if  Anacreon  had  written  in 

VOL.    I.  11 


122  THE    SEER. 

England,  he  would  have  addressed  tlie  grasshopper 
instead  of  the  tettix. 

We  have  marked  in  Italics  the  expressions,  which, 
though  original  in  Cowley's  version,  are  purely  An- 
acreontic, and  such  as  the  Grecian  would  have  de- 
lighted to  write.  The  whole  poem  is  much  longer 
than  Anacre.on's,  —  double  the  size  ;  but  this,  perhaps, 
only  justly  makes  up  for  the  prolongation  afforded  to 
all  ancient  poems,  by  the  music  which  accompanied 
them.  There  is  not  a  Cowleian  conceit  in  the  whole 
of  it,  unless  the  thought  about  "  farmer  and  landlord" 
be  one,  which  is  quickly  forgiven  for  its  naturalness  in 
an  English  landscape  ;  and  the  whole,  from  beginning 
to  end,  though  not  so  perfectly  melodious,  runs  on 
with  that  natural  yet  regulated  and  elegant  enthusiasm 
betwixt  delight  in  the  obje6l,  and  indolent  enjoyment 
in  the  spe6tator,  which  has  been  noticed  as  charadter- 
istic  of  the  sprightly  old  bard.  The  repetition  of  the 
word  all  is  quite  in  the  poet's  manner ;  who  loved 
thus  to  cram  much  into  little,  and  to  pretend  to  him- 
self that  he  was  luxuriously  exoatiating :  as  in  fadl 
he  was,  in  his  feelings  ;  though,  as  to  composition,  he 
did  not  choose  to  make  "  a  toil  of  a  pleasure." 

"  Happy  insect !  what  can  be 
In  happiness  compared  to  thee  ? 
Fed  with  nourishment  divine,  — 
The  dewy  morning's  gentle  icine. 
Nature  waits  upon  thee  still, 
And  thy  verdant  cup  does  fill : 
'Tis  filled  wherever  thou  dost  tread  ; 
Nature's  self  thy  Ganymede. 
Thou  dost  drink  and  dance  and  sing. 
Happier  than  the  happiest  Ling. 


ANACREON.  1 23 

All  the  fields  which  thou  dost  see, 

All  tlie  plants,  belong  to  tliee ; 

All  that  summer  hours  produce, 

Fertile  made  with  early  juice. 

Mau  for  thee  does  sow  and  plough  , 

Farmer  he,  aud  landlord  thou ! 

Thou  dost  innocently  joy  ; 

Nor  does  thy  luxury  destroy. 

The  shepherd  gladly'  heareth  thee. 

More  harmonious  than  he. 

Thee  country  hinds  with  gladness  hear, 

Prophet  of  the.  ripened  year  ! 

Phoebus  is  himself  thy  sire ; 

Thee  Phoebus  loves,  and  does  inspire  : 

To  thee,  of  all  things  upon  earth. 

Life  is  no  longer  than  thj  mirth. 

Happy  insect !  happy  thou ! 

Dost  neither  age  nor  winter  know ; 

Bnt  when  thou'st  drunk,  and  danced  and  sung 

Thy  Jill  the  flowery  leaves  among, 

(  Voluptuous  and  ivise  withal. 

Epicurean  animal!) 

Sated  with  thy  summer  feast, 

Thou  retirest  to  endless  rest." 


124 


THE  WRONG   SIDES   OF   SCHOLARSHIP 
AND   NO   SCHOLARSHIP. 


(jHERE  are  two  supposed  (for  they  are  not 
real)  extremes  of  pretension  upon  the  strange 
question,  whether  a  knowledge  of  the  learned 
languages  is  or  is  not  of  use,  against  which  it  behooves 
an  uneducated  man  of  sense  and  modesty  to  be  on  his 
guard.  One  is  the  pretension  of  those  who  say  that  a 
man  can  have  no  idea  of  the  ancient  writers,  without 
a  deep  intimacy  with  their  language  ;  the  other,  of 
those  who  affirm,  with  equal  vehemence,  that  there  is 
no  necessity  to  know  the  language  at  all,  and  that 
translations  do  quite  as  well  as  the  originals  for  giving 
you  all  that  you  need  be  acquainted  with  of  the  au- 
thor's genius. 

The  former  of  these  pretenders  is  generally  a  shal- 
lower man  than  the  other,  though  sometimes  it  is  pure 
vanity  and  self-will  that  makes  him  talk  as  he  does  : 
he  has  an  over-estimation  of  his  advantages,  simply 
because  they  are  his.  He  is  as  proud  of  his  learning 
as  another  pompous  man  might  be  of  his  park  and  his 
mansion.  Such  is  the  case,  when  he  really  has  any 
thing  like  an  intimacy  with  his  authors ;  but  in  both 
instances  he  would  fain  make  out  his  possession  to  be 
unapproachable  by  all  who  have  not  had   the    same 


SCHOLARSHIP    AND    NO    SCHOLARSHIP.  1 25 

golden  key.     The  common  run  of  the  chiss  consists  of 
men  who  really  know  nothing  of  their  authors  but  the 
words,  and  who  unconsciously  feel,  that,  on  that  ac- 
count, they  must  make  the  best  of  their  knowledge, 
and  pretend  it  is  a  wonderful  matter.     Such  a  man 
smiles  when  you  speak  of  getting  some  insight  into  the 
charader  of  Homer's  genius,  or  Virgil's,  by  dint  of 
some  happy  bit  of  version  or  some  masterly  criticism. 
He  says,  triumphantly,  that  "even  Pope"  is  acknowl- 
edged  not  to  give  a  right   idea   of  him,   much   less 
Chapman,  and  those  other  "  old  quaint  writers  :  "  for 
"  old,"   observe,    is   a   term    of  contempt  with   him ; 
though  "  ancient,"  he  thinks,  comprises  every  thing 
that  is   respedable.     But   "old"   means   a   man  who 
lived  only  a  few  hundred  years  back,  and  who  did  not 
write  either  in  Latin  or  Greek;  whereas  "ancient" 
means  a  man  who  lived  upwards  of  a  thousand,  and 
wrote  perhaps  a  dull  book  in  one  of  tliose  langviages 
which  has  contrived  to  come  down  to  us,  owing  to 
some  curious  things  it  contains  relative  to  customs  and 
manners,  or  to  the  influence  of  a  succession  of  these 
sort  of  critics,  and  the  long  fashion  they  have  kept  up 
by  dint  of  the  conne(5tion  that  has  hitherto  subsisted 
between  the  power  of  receiving  a  classical  education 
and  the  advantages  of  wealth  and  rank.     When  all 
the   world   come    to    share    in    that    education,    some 
singular   questions   will    take    place,    both    as   to    the 
genius  of  the  ancient  writers,  and  the  moral  benefits 
derivable  from  portions  of  them.     If  our  friend  of  the 
above  class  is  a  man  of  consequence,  he  looks  upon 
his  learning  as  forming  an  additional  barrier  between 
him  and  the  uneducated.     He  quotes  Greek  in  parlia- 


126  THE    SEER. 

ment,  and  takes  it  for  an  argument.  Or  he  forgets 
both  his  Greek  and  Latin,  but  thinks  he  could  recover 
it  when  he  pleased  ;  and  that  is  the  same  thing.  If  he 
is  a  professed  scholar,  he  is  ignorant  of  every  thing  in 
the  world  but  scholarship,  and  therefore  ignorant  of 
that  too.  He  is  a  pompous  schoolmaster,  or  a  cap- 
tious  verbal  critic,  or,  in  his  most  respectable  capacity, 
a  harmless  and  dreaming  pedant,  —  a  Dominie  Samp- 
son. If  England  had  existed  before  Greece,  he  would 
have  been  an  idolater  of  Shakespeare  and  Milton,  at 
the  expense  of  Homer  and  Euripides ;  or  he  would 
have  known  just  as  much  of  the  former  as  he  does  of 
the  latter ;  that  is  to  say,  nothing.  In  short,  you  may 
describe  him  as  a  man  who  knows  that  there  is  an- 
other man  living  on  the  upper  side  of  his  to\vn,  of  the 
name  of  Ancient ;  and  a  very  wonderful  gentleman  he 
takes  Ancient  to  be,  because  he  is  rich,  and  has  a 
large  library,  and  has  given  him  access  to  it :  but 
what  sort  of  a  man  Ancient  really  is,  what  is  the 
solidity  of  his  understanding,  the  subtlety  of  his  ima- 
gination, or  the  contents  of  the  books  in  his  library, 
except  that  they  are  printed  in  certain  kinds  of  type,  — 
of  all  that  our  learned  friend  knows  nothing ;  and 
therefore  he  concludes  that  nobody  else  can  know. 

Of  the  other  extreme  of  pretenders  who  dogmatize 
on  this  subje6t,  —  that  is  to  say,  who  pronounce  per- 
emptory judgments  of  Yes  and  No,  and  Possible  and 
Impossible,  without  a  due  knowledge  of  the  subje6l,  — 
the  best  and  most  intelligent  portion  sometimes  con- 
tains persons  who  know  so  much  on  other  points,  that 
they  ought  to  know  better  on  this  ;  but,  out  of  a  resent- 
ment of  the  very  want  of  the  other's  advantages,  aftect 


SCHOLARSHIP   AND    XO    SCHOLARSHIP.  IZJ 

to  despise  them.  For  herein  the  exalters  of  a  classical 
education,'  as  the  only  thing  needful,  and  the  decriers 
of  it  as  a  thing  altogether  unnecessary,  set  out  from 
precisely  the  same  ground  of  self-sufficiency.  The 
former  unduly  trumpet  up  the  education,  merely  be- 
cause they  have  had  it  (or  think  they  have)  ;  and  the 
latter  as  rudely  decry  it,  merely  because  they  have  not. 
These  latter  argue,  that  you  may  know  all  that  is  use- 
ful in  ancient  books  by  means  of  translations  ;  and 
that  the  poetry  "  and  all  that"  may  be  got  equally  out 
of  them,  or  is  of  no  consequence.  Their  ovv^n  poetry, 
meanwhile,  such  as  it  is,  —  that  is  to  say,  their  caprices, 
their  imaginary  advantages,  and  the  coloring  which 
their  humor  and  passions  give  to  every  thing  near 
them,  —  is  in  full  blossom. 

To  cut  short  this  question,  which  we  feel  more  loath 
to  touch  upon  in  the  latter  instance  than  in  the  former 
(because  more  sympathy  is  due  to  the  resentment  of  a 
want  than  to  the  arrogance  of  a  possession),  we  may, 
perhaps,  illustrate  the  point  at  once,  to  the  reader's 
satisfadiion,  by  the  help  of  no  greater  a  passage  than  a 
jest  out  of  "Joe  Miller." 

It  is  related  of  Archbishop  Herring,  that,  when  he 
was  at  college,  he  fell  one  day  into  a  gutter ;  and  that 
a  wag  exclaimed  as  he  got  up,  "  Ah,  Herrings  you're 
in  a  pretty  fickle !  "  Upon  which  a  dull  fellow  went 
away,  and  said,  "  So-and-so  has  been  bantering  poor 
Herring.  Herring  fell  into  the  gutter ;  and  so,  says 
Dick,  says  he,  '  Ah,  Herring,  my  boy,  you're  in  a 
pretty  situation  ! '  " 

Now,  the  pedant,  who  is  all  for  the  original  lan- 
guage,   and    is    of  opinion    that   no    version    of  their 


138  THE   SEER. 

writers  or  account  of  them  can  give  you  the  least  idea 
of  their  spirit,  is  bound  to  maintain,  on  'the  same 
principle,  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  convey  the 
smallest  real  taste  of  this  joke  out  of  English  into 
Latin  or  Greek ;  vv^hile  every  real  scholar  knovv^s  that 
the  thing  is  very  possible. 

On  the  other  side,  the  bigoted  no-scholar  is  bound 
to  insist,  that  the  stupid  version  of  the  joke  is  quite  as 
good  as  the  original,  or  at  any  rate  supplies  us  with 
all  that  is  really  wanted  of  it ;  that  the  word  "  situa- 
tion "  is  as  good  as  the  word  "  pickle  ;  "  and  that,  there- 
fore, no  utility  is  lost  sight  of,  —  no  real  information. 
It  is  true,  the  whole  joke  is  lost,  the  whole  spirit  of  the 
thing ;  but  that  is  no  matter.  As  to  confining  the 
notion  of  utility  to  matters  of  information,  useful  in 
the  ordinary  sense  of  the  word,  however  important,  we 
will  not  waste  our  room  upon  it  at  this  time  of  day, 
after  all  which  has  been  said  and  understood  to  the 
contrary.  The  more  we  really  know  of  any  thing, 
languages  included,  the  more,  as  it  has  been  finely 
said,  do  we  "discipline"  our  "humanity;"  that  is, 
teach  our  common  nature  to  know  what  others  have 
thought,  felt,  and  known  before  us,  and  so  enable  our 
modesty  and  information  to  keep  pace  with  each 
other. 

It  will  not  be  supposed  by  the  refledling  reader,  that 
we  mean  to  compare  the  sufficiency  of  a  translation 
in  the  above  instance  with  its  being  all  that  might  be 
wanted  in  others ;  or  that  the  spirit  and  peculiar  fra- 
grance (so  to  speak)  of  such  poetiy  as  Shakespeare's 
could  be  transferred  through  a  Greek  medium,  without 
losing  any  thing  by  the  way ;    unless  a  Shakespeare 


SCHOLARSHIP   AXD    NO    SCHOLARSHIP.  1 29 

himself  were  the  operator,  or  even  then.  Undoubt- 
edly the  peculiarity  of  the  medium  itself,  the  vessel, 
will  make  a  dilTerence.  All  that  we  mean  to  say  is, 
that  some  real  taste  of  the  essence  of  ancient  genius, 
far  better  than  what  is  afforded  by  the  specimens 
generally  on  sale,  can  be  given  by  means  of  great  care 
and  lovingness  ;  and  that  those  who  are  so  insanely 
learned,  as  to  take  the  vessel  itself  for  the  whole  merit 
of  the  contents,  have  no  taste  of  it  at  all. 


i^o 


CRICKET. 

And  Exercise  in  general.     (  Written  in  May^ 

HE  fine,  hard,  flat,  verdant  floors  are  now 
preparing  in  tlie  cricket  -  grounds-  for  this 
manly  and  graceful  game  ;  and  the  village 
greens  (where  they  can)  are  no  less  getting  ready, 
though  not  quite  so  perfe6l.  No  matter  for  that.  A 
true  cricketer  is  not  the  man  to  be  put  out  by  a  trifle. 
He  sei"ves  an  apprenticeship  to  Patience  after  her 
handsomest  fashion.  Henry  the  Fourth  wished  a 
time  might  arrive  in  France,  when  every  man  should 
have  a  pullet  in  his  kettle.  We  should  like  to  see 
a  time  when  every  man  played  at  cricket,  and  had  a 
sound  sleep  after  it,  and  health,  work,  and  leisure.  It 
would  be  a  pretty  world,  if  we  all  had  something  to 
do,  just  to  make  leisure  the  pleasanter ;  and  green 
merry  England  were  sprinkled  all  over,  "  of  after- 
noons," with  gallant  fellows  in  white  sleeves,  who 
threshed  the  earth  and  air  of  their  cricket-grounds  into 
a  crop  of  health  and  spirits  ;  after  which  they  should 
read,  laugh,  love,  and  be  honorable  and  happy  beings, 
bringing  God's  work  to  its  perfe6tion,  and  suiting  the 
divine  creation  they  live  in. 

But  to  speak  in  this  manner  is  to  mix  serious  things 
with   mirthful.     Well,  and  what   true  joy  does  not  ? 


CRICKET. 


131 


Joy,  if  you  did  but  know  him  thoroughl}',  is  a  vciy 
serious  fellow,  —  on  occasion  ;  and  knows  that  happi- 
ness is  a  very  solid  thing,  and  is  zealous  for  Nature's 
honor  and  glory.  The  power  to  be  grave  is  the 
proper  foundation  for  levity  itself  to  rejoice  on.  You 
must  have  floor  for  your  dancing,  —  good  solid  earth 
on  which  to  bother  your  cricket-balls. 

The  spring  is  monstrously  said  to  be  a  sickly  time 
of  the  year !  Yes,  for  the  sickly  ;  or  rather  (not  to 
speak  irreverently  of  sickness  which  cannot  be  helped) 
for  those  who  have  suffered  themselves  to  become  so 
for  want  of  stirring  their  bloods,  and  preparing  for  the 
general  movement  in  Nature's  merry  veins.  People 
stop  in-doors,  and  render  themselves  liable  to  all  "  the 
skyey  influences  ;  "  and  then,  out  of  the  same  thought- 
less efleminacy  of  self-indulgence,  they  expose  them- 
selves to  the  catching  of  colds  and  fevers,  and  the 
beautiful  spring  is  blamed,  and  "  fine  Mays  make  fat 
churchyards."  The  Gypsies,  we  will  be  bound,  have 
no  such  proverbs.  The  cricketer  has  none  such.  He 
is  a  sensible,  hearty  fellow,  —  too  wise  not  to  take 
proper  precautions  ;  but,  above  all,  too  wise  not  to  take 
the  best  of  all  precautions  ;  which  is,  to  take  care  of 
his  health,  and  be  stirring.  Nature  is  stirring,  and  so 
is  he.  Nature  is  healthy,  and  so  is  he.  Natui'e,  in  a 
hundred  thousand  parts  to  a  fradlion,  is  made  up  of 
air  and  fields  and  country,  and  out  of  doors,  and  a 
strong  teeming  earth,  and  a  good-natured  sky ;  and  so 
is  the  strong  heai't  of  the  cricketer. 

Do  we,  then,  blame  any  of  the  sick,  —  even  those 
who  are  "blamable"?  Not  we ;  we  blame  nobody: 
what  is  the  use  of  it?     Besides,  we  don't  like  to  be 


132  THE    SEER. 

blamed  ourselves,  especially  when  we  are  in  the 
wrong.  We  like  to  be  coaxed,  and  called  sensible, 
and  to  have  people  wonder  good-naturedly  (not  spite- 
fully) how  people  so  very  shrewd  can  do  any  thing 
erroneous ;  and  then  we  love  them,  and  wish  to  be  led 
right  by  people  so  very  intelligent,  and  know  no 
bounds  to  our  wish  to  please  them.  So  the  measure 
which  we  like  ovirselves  we  would  fain  deal  out  to 
others.  You  may  do  it  without  any  insincerity,  if  the 
patient  have  but  one  good  or  sensible  quality,  or  one 
sweet  drop  in  his  heart,  from  which  comfort  is  to  be 
squeezed  into  the  cup  of  advice.  And  who  has  not 
this?  But  it  may  be  said,  it  is  not  to  be  found.  No? 
Then  the  eyesight  is  very  bad,  or  the  patient  is  not  to 
be  mended,  —  a  case  luckily  as  rare  as  it  is  melan- 
choly, and  to  be  looked  upon  as  a  madness.  The  best 
step  to  be  taken  in  that  instance  is  to  give  him  as 
little  advice,  and  see  that  he  does  as  little  harm,  as 
possible.  For  all  reasonable  care  is  to  be  taken  of 
the  comfort  even  of  those  who  give  none.  They  are 
a  part  of  the  human  race. 

As  to  our  sickly  friends  before  mentioned,  all  we 
shall  say  to  them  is,  —  what  was  said  by  an  abrupt  but 
benevolent  friend  of  ours  to  the  startled  ears  of  a  fine 
lady, —  "  Get  out ! " 

"  Well,  I  never  !  "  exclaimed  the  lady. 

The  reader  knows  the  perfe6lion  of  meaning  im- 
plied by  that  imperfect  sentence,  "  Well,  I  never ! " 
However,  the  lady  was  not  only  a  fine  lady,  but  a 
shrewd  woman :  so  she  "  got  out,"  and  was  a  goer 
out  afterwards,  and  lived  happily  enough  to  benefit 
others  by  her  example. 


CRICKET.  133 

Many  people  take  no  exercise  at  all,  because  they 
cannot  take,  or  think  they  cannot  take,  a  great  deal : 
at  least,  this  is  the  reason  they  give  their  consciences- 
It  is  not  always  a  sincere  one.  They  had  better  say 
to  themselves  at  once,  "  I  am  too  idle  ;  "  or,  "  I  am  too 
accustomed  to  sit  still  to  make  exercise  pleasant." 
Where  the  fault  is  aware  of  itself,  there  is  better  hope 
of  its  mending.  But  the  least  bit  of  exercise  is  better 
than  none.  A  walk,  five  minutes  before  dinner,  in  a 
garden,  or  down  a  street,  is  better  than  no  walk  at  all. 
It  is  some  break,  however  small  a  one,  into  the  mere 
habit  of  sitting  still,  and  growing  stagnant  of  blood, 
or  corpulent  of  body.  A  little  tiny  bit  of  the  sense 
of  doing  one's  duty  is  kept  up  by  it.  A  glimpse  of  a 
reverence  is  retained  for  sprightliness  of  mind,  and 
shapeliness  of  person ;  and  thus  the  case  is  not  ren- 
dered hopeless,  should  circumstances  arise  that  tempt 
tlie  patient  into  a  more  adlive  system.  A  fair  kins- 
woman of  ours,  once  reckoned  among  the  fairest  of 
her  native  cit}^,  —  a  very  intelligent  woman  as  far  as 
books  went,  and  latterly  a  very  sharp  observ-er  into 
tlie  faults  of  other  people,  by  dint  of  a  certain  exas- 
peration of  her  own,  —  literally  fell  a  sacrifice  to 
sitting  in-doors,  and  never  quitting  her  favorite  pastime 
of  reading.  The  pastime  was  at  once  her  bane  and 
her  antidote.  It  would  have  been  nothing  but  a  bless- 
ing, had  she  varied  it.  But  her  misfortune  was,  that 
her  self-will  was  still  greater  than  her  sense,  and  that, 
being  able  to  fill  up  her  moments  as  pleasantly  as  she 
wished  din'ing  health,  she  had  persuaded  herself  I'.uit 
she  could  go  on  filling  them  up  as  pleasantly  hy 
tlie    same    process,   when    she    grew   older ;    and    this 


134  "T^^^    SEER. 

*'  wouldn't  do  "  !  For  oui-  bodies  are  changing,  while 
our  minds  are  thinking  nothing  of  the  matter ;  and 
people  in  vain  attribute  the  new  pains  and  weaknesses 
which  come  upon  them  to  this  and  that  petty  cause,  — 
a  cold,  or  a  heat,  or  an  apple  ;  thinking  they  shall 
"  be  better  to-morrow,"  and  as  healthy  as  they  were 
before.  Time  will  not  palter  with  the  real  state  of 
the  case,  for  all  our  self-will  and  our  over-weening 
confidence.  The  person  we  speak  of  literally  rusted 
in  her  chair ;  lost  the  use  of  her  limbs,  and  died 
paralytic,  and  ghastly  to  look  upon,  of  pi^emature  old 
age.  The  physicians  said  it  was  a  clear  case.  On 
the  other  hand,  we  heard  some  years  ago  of  a  gentle- 
man of  seventy,  a  medical  man  (now  most  probably 
alive  and  merry;  we  hope  he  will  read  this),  who, 
meeting  a  kinsman  of  ours  in  the  street,  and  being 
congratulated  on  the  singular  youthfulness  of  his 
aspect,  said  that  he  was  never  better  or  more  aclive  in 
his  life  ;  that  it  was  all  owing  to  his  having  walked 
sixteen  miles  a  day,  on  an  average,  for  the  greater 
part  of  it ;  and  that,  at  the  age  of  seventy,  he  felt  all 
the  lightness  and  cheerfulness  of  seventeen !  This  is 
an  extreme  case,  owing  to  peculiar  circumstances  ;  but 
it  shows  of  what  our  nature  is  capable,  where  favora- 
ble circumstances  are  not  contradi6led.  This  gentle- 
man had  cultivated  a  cheerful  benevolence  of  mind, 
as  well  as  activity  of  body ;  and  the  two  together  were 
irresistible,  even  to  old  Time.  The  death  of  such  a 
man  must  be  like  going  to  sleep  after  a  good  journey. 

The  instindt  which  sets  people  in  exercise  is  one  of 
the  most  natural  of  all  instin6ts,  and,  where  it  is  totally 
stopped,  must  have  been  hurt  by  some  very  injudicious 


CRICKET.  135 

circumstances  in  the  bringing-up,  either  of  pampered 
will  or  prevented  a6livity.  The  restlessness  felt  by 
nervous  people  is  Nature's  kindly  intimation  that  they 
should  bestir  themselves.  Motion,  as  far  as  hitherto 
has  been  known,  is  the  first  law  of  the  universe.  The 
air,  the  rivers,  the  world,  move  ;  the  very  "  fixed  stars," 
as  we  call  them,  are  moving  towards  some  unknown 
point ;  the  substance,  apparently  the  most  unmoving, 
the  table  in  your  room,  or  the  wall  of  the  opposite 
house,  is  gaining  or  losing  particles,  —  if  you  had  eyes 
fine  enough,  you  would  see  its  surface  stirring :  some 
philosophers  even  hold  that  every  substance  is  made 
up  of  vital  atoms.  As  to  one's  self,  one  must  either 
move  away  from  death  and  disease,  and  so  keep  pleas- 
antly putting  them  off,  or  they  will  move  us  with  a 
vengeance  ;  ay,  in  the  midst  of  our  most  sedentary  for- 
getfulness,  or  while  we  flatter  ourselves  we  are  as  still 
and  as  sound  as  marble.  Time  is  all  the  while  draw- 
ing lines  in  our  faces  ;  clogging  our  limbs ;  putting 
ditch-water  into  our  blood  ;  preparing  us  to  mingle 
with  the  grave  and  the  rolling  earth,  since  we  will  not 
obey  the  great  law,  and  move  of  our  own  accord. 

Come,  dear  readers,  now  is  the  season,  for  such  of 
you  as  are  vir^tuous  in  this  matter,  to  pride  and  rejoice 
yourselves ;  and  for  such  of  you  as  have  omitted  the 
virtue  in  your  list,  to  put  it  there.  It  will  grace  and 
gladden  all  the  rest.  A  cricketer  is  a  sort  of  glorifier 
of  exercise,  and  we  respeft  him  accordingly:  but  it  is 
not  in  every  one's  power  to  be  a  cricketer ;  and  re- 
spe6l  attends  a  man  in  proportion  as  he  does  what  he 
is  able.  Come,  then,  be  respectable  in  this  matter  as 
far  as  you  can  ;    have  a  whole  mile's  respedlability, 


136  THE    SEER. 

if  possible,  —  or  two  miles',  or  four:  let  our  homage 
wait  upon  you  into  the  fields,  thinking  of  all  the  good 
you  are  doing  to  yourselves,  to  your  kindred,  to  your 
offspring  born  or  not  born,  and  to  all  friends  who  love 
you,  and  would  be  grieved  to  lose  you.  Healthy  and 
graceful  example  makes  healthy  and  graceful  children, 
makes  cheerful  tempers,  makes  grateful  and  loving 
friends.  We  know  but  of  one  inconvenience  resulting 
from  the  sight  of  such  virtue ;  and  that  is,  that  it 
sometimes  makes  one  love  it  too  much,  and  long  to 
know  it,  and  show  our  gratitude.  A  poet  has  said, 
that  he  never  could  travel  through  different  places,  and 
think  how  many  agreeable  people  they  probably  con- 
tained, without  feeling  a  sort  of  impatience  at  not 
being  able  to  make  their  acquaintance.  But  he  was  a 
rich  poet,  and  his  benevolence  was  a  little  pampered 
and  self-willed.  It  is  enough  for  us  that  we  some- 
times resent  our  inability  to  know  those  whom  we 
behold,  —  who  charm  us  visibly,  or  of  whose  exist- 
ence, somehow  or  other,  we  are  made  pleasantly 
certain,  without  going  so  far  as  to  raise  up  exquisite 
causes  of  distress  after  his  fashion.  Now,  as  we  never 
behold  the  cricketer  or  the  horseman  or  the  field- 
stroller  (provided  we  can  suppose  him  bound  on  his 
task  with  a  liking  of  it)  without  a  feeling  of  something 
like  respe6t  and  gratitude  (for  the  twofold  pleasurable 
idea  he  gives  us  of  Nature  and  himself)  ;  so  we  cannot 
look  upon  all  those  fair  creatures,  blooming  or  other- 
wise, who  walk  abroad  with  their  friends  or  children, 
whether  in  village  or  town,  fine  square  or  common 
street,  without  feeling  something  like  a  bit  of  love, 
and  wishing  that  the  world  were  in   such  condition 


CRICKET.  137 

as  to  let  people  evince  what  they  feel,  and  be  more 
like  good,  honest  folks  and  chatty  companions.  If 
we  sometimes  admire  maid-sei-vants,  instead  of  their 
mistresses,  it  is  not  our  fault,  but  that  of  the  latter, 
who  will  not  come  abroad.  Besides,  a  real  good- 
humored  maid-serv'ant,  with  a  pretty  face,  playing 
over  the  sward  of  a  green  square  with  her  mistress's 
children,  is  a  very  respectable  as  well  as  pleasant 
obje6l.  May  no  inferior  of  the  other  sex,  under  pre- 
tence of  being  a  gentleman^  deceive  her,  and  render 
her  less  so  ! 


I3S 


A    DUSTY    DAY. 


MONG  the  "  Miseries  of  Human  Life,"  as  a 
wit  pleasantly  entitled  them,  there  are  few, 
while  the  rascal  is  about  it,  worse  than  a 
great  cloud  of  dust,  coming  upon  you  in  street  or 
road,  you  having  no  means  of  escape,  and  the  car- 
riages, or  flock  of  sheep,  evidently  being  bent  on  im- 
parting to  you  a  full  share  of  their  besetting  horror. 
The  road  is  too  narrow  to  leave  you  a  choice,  even  if 
it  had  two  pathways,  which  it  has  not :  the  day  is 
hot ;  the  wind  is  whisking.  You  have  come  out  in 
stockings,  instead  of  boots  ;  not  being  aware  that  you 
were  occasionally  to  have  two  feet  depth  of  dust  to 
walk  in.  JVow,  now  the  dust  is  on  you ;  you  are 
enveloped  ;  you  are  blind  ;  you  have  to  hold  your 
hat  on  against  the  wind  :  the  carriages  grind  by,  or 
the  sheep  go  pattering  along,  baaing  through  all  the 
notes  of  their  poor  gamut ;  perhaps  carriages  and 
sheep  are  together,  the  latter  eschewing  the  horses' 
legs,  and  the  shepherd's  dog  driving  against  your  own, 
and  careering  over  the  woolly  backs.  Whew !  what 
a  dusting  !  What  a  blinding !  What  a  whirl !  The 
noise  decreases  ;  you  stop  ;  you  look  about  you  ;  gath- 
ering up  your  hat,  coat,  and  faculties,  after  apologizing 
to  the  gentleman  against  whom  you  have  "  lumped," 


A   DUSTY   DAY.  1 39 

and  who  does  not  look  a  bit  the  happier  for  your 
apology.  The  dust  is  in  your  eyes,  in  your  hair,  in 
your  shoes  and  stockings,  in  your  neck-cloth,  in  your 
mouth.  You  grind  your  teeth  in  dismay,  and  find 
them  gritty. 

Perhaps  another  carriage  Is  coming  ;  and  you,  find- 
ing yourself  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  and  being 
resolved  to  be  master  of  at  least  this  inferior  horror, 
turn  about  towards  the  wall  or  paling,  and  propose  to 
make  your  way  accordingly,  and  have  the  dust  behind 
your  back,  instead  of  in  front ;  when,  lo  !  you  begin 
sneezing,  and  cannot  see.  You  have  taken  involun- 
tary snuff". 

Or  you  suddenly  discern  a  street,  down  which  you 
can  turn,  which  you  do  with  rapture,  thinking  to  get 
out  of  wind  and  dust  at  once ;  when,  unfortunately, 
you  discover  that  the  wind  is  veering  to  all  points  of 
the  compass,  and  that,  instead  of  avoiding  the  dust, 
there  is  a  ready-made  and  intense  collection  of  it,  then 
in  the  a6t  of  being  swept  into  your  eyes  by  the  attend- 
ants on  a  —  dust-cart ! 

The  reader  knows  what  sort  of  a  day  we  speak  of. 
It  is  all  dusty,  —  the  windows  are  dusty ;  the  people 
are  dust)^ ;  the  hedges  in  the  roads  are  horribly 
dusty,  —  pitiably, — you  think  they  must  feel  it ;  shoes 
and  boots  are  like  a  baker's ;  men  on  horseback  eat 
and  drink  dust ;  coachmen  sit  screwing  up  their  eyes  ; 
the  gardener  finds  his  spade  slip  into  the  ground, 
fetching  up  smooth  portions  of  earth,  all  made  of  dust. 
What  is  the  poor  pedestrian  to  do  ? 

To  think  of  something  superior  to  the  dust,  — 
whether  grave  or  gay.     This  is  the  secret  of  being 


140  THE    SEER. 

master  of  any  ordinary,  and  of  much  exh'aordinary 
trouble :  bring  a  better  idea  upon  it,  and  it  is  hard  if 
the  greater  thought  does  not  do  something  against  tlie 
less.  When  we  meet  with  any  very  unpleasant  per- 
son, to  whose  ways  we  cannot  suddenly  reconcile 
ourselves,  we  think  of  some  delightful  friend,  perhaps 
tM'O  hundred  miles  oft',  —  in  Northumberland,  or  in 
Wales.  When  dust  threatens  to  blind  us,  we  shut 
our  eyes  to  the  disaster,  and  contrive  to  philosophize  a 
bit  even  then. 

"  Oh  !  but  it  is  not  worth  while  doing  that." 

Good.  If  so,  there  is  nothing  to  do  but  to  be  as 
jovial  as  the  dust  itself,  and  take  all  gayly.  Indeed, 
this  is  the  philosophy  we  speak  of. 

"  And  yet  the  dust  is  annoying  too." 

Well,  take,  then,  just  as  much  good  sense  as  you 
require  for  the  occasion.  Think  of  a  jest ;  think  of  a 
bit  of  verse ;  think  of  the  dog  you  saw  just  now, 
coming  out  of  the  pond,  and  frightening  the  dandy  in 
his  new  trousers.  But,  at  all  events,  don't  let  your 
temper  be  mastered  by  such  a  thing  as  a  cloud  of  dust. 
It  will  show,  either  tliat  you  have  a  very  infirm  temper 
indeed,  or  no  ideas  in  your  head. 

On  all  occasions  in  life,  great  or  small,  you  may  be 
the  worse  for  them,  or  the  better.  You  may  be  made 
the  weaker  or  the  stronger  by  them  ;  ay,  even  by  so 
small  a  thing  as  a  little  dust. 

When  the  famous  Arbuthnot  was  getting  into  his 
carriage  one  day,  he  was  beset  witli  dust.  What  did 
he  do  ?  Damn  the  dust  or  the  coachman  ?  No  :  that 
was  not  his  fashion.  He  was  a  wit,  and  a  good- 
natured  man  :   so  he  fell  to  making  an  epigram,  which 


A    DUSTY    DAY.  I4I 

he  sent  to  his  friends.  It  was  founded  on  scientific 
knowledge,  and  consisted  of  the  following  pleasant 
exaggeration  :  — 

ON   A   DUSTY    DAT. 

The  dust  in  smullcr  particles  arose 
Tliau  tliose  wliich  fluid  bodies  do  compose. 
Contraries  in  extremes  do  often  meet : 
Jt  was  so  dry,  that  you  might  call  it  wet 

Dust  at  a  distance  sometimes  takes  a  burnished  or 
tawny  aspe6l  in  the  sun,  almost  as  handsome  as  the 
great  yellow  smoke  out  of  breweries ;  and  you  may 
amuse  your  fancy  with  thinking  of  the  clotids  that 
precede  armies  in  the  old  books  of  poetry,  —  the 
spears  gleaming  out ;  the  noise  of  the  throng  grow- 
ing on  the  ear ;  and,  at  length,  horses  emerging,  and 
helmets  and  flags,  —  the  Lion  of  King  Richard,  or  the 
Lilies  of  France. 

Or  you  may  think  of  some  better  and  more  harm- 
less palm  of  vidlory,  "  not  without  dust"  {pahna  non 
sine  pulvere),  —  dust  such  as  Horace  says  the  horse- 
men of  antiquity  liked  to  kick  up  at  the  Olympic 
games  ;  or,  as  he  more  elegantly  phrases  it,  "  collect " 
{collcgisse  juvat ;  which  a  punster  of  our  acquaint- 
ance translated,  "  kicking  up  a  dust  at  college  ")  ;  or, 
if  you  are  in  a  very  philosophic  vein  indeed,  you  may 
think  of  man's  derivation  from  dust,  and  his  return  to 
it ;  redeeming  your  thoughts  from  gloom  by  the  hopes 
beyond  dust,  and  by  the  graces  which  poetry  and  the 
affections  have  shed  upon  it  in  this  life,  like  flowers 
upon  graves ;  lamenting,  with  the  tender  Petrarch, 
that  "  those  eyes  of  which  he  spoke  so  warmly,"  and 


142  THE    SEER. 

that  golden  hair,  and  "  the  lightning  of  that  angel 
smile,"  and  all  those  other  beauties  which  made  him  a 
lover  "  marked  out  from  among  men,"  —  a  being  ab- 
stradled  "  from  the  rest  of  his  species,"  ■> — are  now 
"a  little  dust,  without  a  feeling,"  — 

"  Poca  polvere  son  che  nulla  sente  ;  " 

or  repeating  that  beautiful  lyric  of  the  last  of  the 
Shakespearian  men,  Shirley,  which  they  say  touched 
even  the  thoughtless  bosom  of  Charles  the  Second  :  — 

death's  final  conquest. 

The  glories  of  our  birth  and  state 
Are  shadows,  not  substantial  things : 
Tiiere  is  no  armor  against  fate ; 
Death  lays  his  iaj  hand  on  kings : 

Sceptre  and  crown 

Must  tumble  down, 
And  in  the  dust  be  equal  made 
With  the  poor  crooked  scythe  and  spade. 

Some  men  Avith  swords  may  reap  the  field. 
And  plant  fresh  laurels  where  they  kill : 
But  their  strong  nerves  at  last  must  yield ; 
They  tame  but  one  another  still. 

Early  or  late 

They  stoop  to  fiite, 
And  must  give  up  their  murmuring  breath, 
W/ien  they,  pale  captives,  creep  to  death. 

The  garlands  wither  on  your  brow  ; 
Then  boast  no  more  your  mighty  deeds  : 
Upon  Death's  purple  altar  now 
See  where  the  victor-victim  bleeds ! 

All  heads  must  come 

To  the  cold  tomb  : 
Only  the  actions  of  the  just 
Smell  siceet,  and  blossom  in  the  dust. 


A    DUSTY   DAY. 


M3 


ISIost  true ;  but,  with  the  leave  of  the  fine  poet 
(which  he  would  gladly  have  conceded  to  us), 
Death's  conquest  is  not  "  final ; "  for  Heaven  tri- 
umphs over  him,  and  love  too,  and  poetry ;  and  thus 
we  can  get  through  the  cloud  even  of  his  dust,  and 
shake  it,  in  aspiration,  from  our  wings.  Besides,  we 
know  not,  with  any  exaftitude,  what  or  who  Death 
is,  or  whether  there  is  any  such  personage,  even 
in  his  negative  sense,  except  inasmuch  as  he  is  a 
gentle  voice,  calling  upon  us  to  go  some  journey : 
for  the  very  dust  that  he  is  supposed  to  deal  in  is 
alive  ;  is  the  cradle  of  other  beings  and  vegetation  ; 
nay,  its  least  particle  belongs  to  a  mighty  life ;  is 
planetary  ;  is  part  of  our  star ;  is  the  stufl'  of  which 
the  worlds  are  made,  that  roll  and  rejoice  round  the 
sun. 

Of  these  or  the  like  reflecflions,  serious  or  othei'wise, 
are  the  cogitations  of  the  true  pedestrian  composed : 
such  are  the  weapons  with  which  he  triumphs  over 
tlie  most  hostile  of  his  clouds,  whether  material  or 
metaphorical ;  and,  at  the  end  of  his  dusty  walk,  he 
beholdeth,  in  beautiful  perspective,  the  towel,  and  the 
basin  and  water,  with  which  he  will  render  his  eyes, 
cheeks,  and  faculties  as  cool  and  fresh  as  if  no  dust 
had  touched  them  ;  nay,  more  so  ybr  ^/ie  contrast. 
Never  forget  that  secret  of  the  reconcilements  of  this 
life.  To  sit  down,  newly  washed  and  dressed,  after 
a  dusty  journey,  and  hear  that  dinner  is  to  be  ready 
"in  ten  minutes,"  is  a  satisfa6tion,  —  a  crowning  and 
"  measureless  content,"  —  which  we  hope  no  one  will 
enjoy  who  does  not  allow  fair  play  between  the  harm- 
less lights   and   shadows  of  existence,   and    treat    his 


I^^  THE    SEER. 

dust  with  respedl.  We  defy  him  to  enjoy  it,  at  any 
rate,  like  those  who  do.  His  ill-temper,  somehow  or 
other,  will  rise  in  retribution  against  him,  and  find 
dust  on  his  saddle  of  mutton. 


H5 


BRICKLAYERS,  AND  AN  OLD   BOOK. 


T  is  a  very  hot  day  and  a  "  dusty  day : "  you 
are  passing  through  a  street  in  which  there  is 
no  shade,  —  a  new  street,  only  half  built  and 
lalf  paved ;  the  areas  unfinished  as  you  advance  (it 
is  to  be  hoped  no  dnanken  man  will  stray  there)  ; 
the  floors  of  the  houses  only  raftered  (you  can't  go  in 
and  sit  down)  ;  broken  glass,  at  the  turnings,  on  the 
bits  of  garden  wall ;  the  time,  noon ;  the  month, 
August ;  the  whole  place  glaring  with  the  sun,  and 
colored  with  yellow  brick,  chalk,  and  lime.  Occasion- 
ally 3'ou  stmnble  upon  the  bottom  of  an  old  saucepan, 
or  kick  a  baked  shoe. 

In  this  very  hot  passage  through  life,  you  are  long- 
ing for  soda-water  or  for  the  sound  of  a  pump  ;  when 
suddenly  you  — 

"  Hear  a  trowel  tick  against  a  brick," 

and  down  a  ladder  by  your  side,  which  bends  at 
every  step,  comes  dancing,  with  hod  on  shoulder,  a 
bricklayer,  who  looks  as  dry  as  his  vocation ;  his 
eyes  winking,  his  mouth  gaping ;  his  beard  grim  with 
a  week's  growth,  the  rest  of  his  hair  like  a  badger's. 
You  then,  for  the  first  time,  see  a  liltle  water  by  the 
wayside,  thick  and  white  with  chalk  ;  and  are  doubt- 
ing whether  to  admire  it  as  a  liquid,  or  detest  it  for  its 

VOL.  I.  13 


14^  THE    SEER. 

color ;  when  a  quantity  of  lime  is  dashed  against  the 
sieve,  and  you  receive  in  your  eyes  and  mouth  a  taste 
of  the  dry  and  burning  elements  of  mortar,  w^ithout 
the  refreshment  of  the  wet.  Finally,  your  shoe  is 
burned ;  and  as  the  bricklayer  says  something  to  his 
fellow  in  Irish,  who  laughs,  you  fancy  that  he  is  witty 
at  your  expense,  and  has  made  some  ingenious  bull. 

"  A  pretty  pi(5ture,  Mr.  Seer  !  and  very  refreshing, 
this  hot  weather  !  " 

Oh  !  but  you  are  only  a  chance  acquaintance  of  us, 
my  dear  sir :  you  don't  know  what  philosophies  we 
writers  and  readers  of  "The  Seer"  possess,  which 
render  us  "  lords  of  ourselves,"  unencumbered  even 
with  the  mighty  misery  of  a  hot  day,  and  the  hod  on 
another  man's  shouldei.  You,  unfortunate  easy  man, 
have  been  thinking  of  nothing:  but  tlie  "  agofravations  " 
of  the  street  all  this  while,  and  are  ready  to  enter  your 
house,  after  the  walk,  in  a  temper  to  kick  off  your 
shoes  into  the  servant's  face.  We,  besides  being  in 
the  street,  have  been  in  all  sorts  of  pleasant  and 
remote  places ;  have  been  at  Babylon ;  have  been  at 
Bagdad  ;  have  bathed  in  the  river  Tigris,  the  river  of 
that  city  of  the  "  Arabian  Nights  ;  "  nay,  have  been  in 
Paradise  itself!  led  by  old  Bochart  and  his  vmdeniable 
maps,  where  you  see  the  place  as  "graphically  set 
forth "  as  though  it  had  never  vanished,  and  Adam 
and  Eve  walking  in  it,  taller  than  the  trees.  We  are 
writing  upon  the  very  book  this  moment,  instead  of  a 
desk,  a  fond  custom  of  ours  ;  though,  for  dignity's  sake, 
we  beg  to  say  we  /tave  a  desk :  but  we  like  an  old 
folio  to  write  upon,  written  by  some  happy  believing 
hand,  no  matter  whether  we  go  all  lengths  or  not  with 


BRICKLAYERS,  AND  AN  OLD  BOOK.      1 47 

his  sort  of  proof,  jorovided  he  be  in  earnest  and  a  good 
fellow.* 

Let  us  indulge  ourselves  a  moment,  during  this  hot 
subje6t,  with  the  map  in  question.     It  is  now  before 
us  ;  the  river  Euphrates  running  up  thi'ough  it  in  dark 
fulness,  and  appearing  through   the   paper  on  which 
we  are  writing  like  rich  veins.     Occasionally  we  take 
up  the  paper  to  see   it  better ;    the  garden  of  Eden, 
however,   always    remaining   visible   below,    and    the 
mountains  of  Armenia  at  top.     The  map  is  a  small 
folio  size,  darkly  printed,  with  thick  letters ;    a  good 
stout  sprinkle  of  mountains ;    a  great  tower  to  mark 
the   site  of  Babylon  ;    trees,   as  formal   as   a  park  in 
those  days,  to   shadow  forth   the   terrestrial  paradise, 
with  Adam   and   Eve,   as   before   mentioned ;    Greek 
and  Hebrew  names  here  and  there  mingled  with  the 
Latin;     a   lion,    towards    the    north-west,    sitting    in 
Armenia,  and  bigger  than   a   mountain ;    some  other 
beast,  "  stepping  west"  from  the  Caspian  Sea  ;   and  a 
great  tablet  in  the  south-west  corner,  presenting  the 
title  of  the  map,  the  site  of  Eden,  or  the  Terrestrial 
Paradise   (Edenis,  scu  Paradisi  Terrestris  Situs),  sur- 
mounted with  a  tree,  and  formidable  with  the  Serpent, 
who,  suddenly  appearing  from  one  side  of  it  with  the 
apple  in  his  mouth,  is  startling  a  traveller  on  the  other. 
These  old  maps  are  as  good  to  study  as  pictures  and 
books ;   and  the  region  before  us  is  specially  rich,  — 
reverend  with  memories  of  scripture,  pompous  with 
Alexander's  cities,  and  delightful  with  the  "  Arabian 

*  Our  volume  is  the  Geographia  Snc.-^r,  fivllnwed  liy  his  <■(  ninu'titarv 
on  Stephen  of  Byzantium,  the  treatise  De  Jure  Begum,  &c.  &c.  The 
Leyden  edition,  1707. 


I4S  THE   SEER. 

Nights."  You  go  up  from  the  Persian  Gulf  at  the 
foot,  passing  (like  Sindbad)  the  city  of  Caiphat,  where 
"  bdellium  "  is  to  be  had ;  and  the  Island  of  Bahrim, 
famous  for  its  pearl-fishery  (Bahrim  Insula  ^largarita- 
rum  Piscat.  Celebris)  ;  then  penetrate  the  garden  of 
Eden,  with  the  river  Euphrates,  as  straight  as  a  canal ; 
pass  the  Cypress-grove,  which  furnished  the  wood  of 
which  the  ark  was  made  ;  Mousal,  one  of  our  old 
friends  in  the  "  Arabian  Nights  ; "  Babylon,  fiimous 
for  a  hundi"ed  fanes,  the  sublime  of  brick-btiilding ; 
»2Tina  the  "Naarda  of  Ptolemy,"  —  a  "celebrated 
school  of  the  Jews  ;"  Ur  (of  the  Chaldees),  the  coun- 
try of  Abraham  ;  Noah's  city,  Xu/zt?  Qa/iavuv,  the  city  of 
Eight,  so  called  from  the  eight  persons  that  came  out 
of  the  ark ;  Omar's  Island,  where  there  is  a  mosque 
(says  the  map)  made  out  of  the  relics  of  the  ark ; 
Mount  Ararat,  on  the  top  of  which  it  rested  ;  and 
thence  you  pass  the  springs  of  the  Tigris  and  the 
Euphrates  into  Colchis  with  its  Golden  Fleece,  leaving 
the  Caspian  Sea  on  one  side,  and  the  Euxine  on  the 
other,  with  Phasis  the  country  of  pheasants,  and  Cap- 
padocia,  whei^e  you  see  the  mild  light  shining  on  the 
early  Christian  Church ;  and  you  have  come  all  this 
way  through  the  famous  names  of  Persia  and  Arabia 
and  Armenia  and  Mesopotamia  and  Syria  and  As- 
syria, with  Arbela  on  the  right  hand,  where  Darius 
was  overthrown,  and  Damascus  on  the  left,  rich,  from 
time  immemorial  to  this  day,  with  almost  every  East- 
ern association  of  ideas,  sacred  and  profane. 

In  regions  of  this  nature  did  sincere,  book-loving, 
scholarly  Bochart  spend  i/ie  days  of  his  mind^  —  by 
far  the  greater  portion  of  the  aclual  days  of  such  a 


BRICKLAYERS,  AND  AN  OLD  BOOK.       149 

man's  life  ;  and,  for  that  reason,  we,  who,  though  not 
so  scholarly,  love  books  as  well  as  he  did,  love  to  have 
the  folio  of  such  a  man  under  our  paper  for  a  desk ; 
making  his  venerable  mixture  of  truth  and  fidion  a 
foundation,  as  it  were,  for  our  own  love  of  both,  and 
rendering  the  dream  of  his  existence,  in  some  measure, 
as  tangible  to  us  as  it  was  to  himself,  in  the  shape  of 
one  of  his  works  of  love.  Do  people  now-a-days  — 
do  even  we  ourselves  —  love  books  as  they  did  in 
those  times?  It  is  hardly  possible,  seeing  how  the 
volumes  have  multiplied  to  distradl  choice  and  pas- 
sion, and  also  how  small  in  size  they  have  become,  — 
octavos  and  duodecimos.  A  little  book  is  indeed  "  a 
love"  (to  use  a  modern  phrase),  and  fitted  to  carry 
about  with  us  in  our  walks  and  pockets :  but  then  a 
great  book,  —  a  folio,  —  was  a  thing  to  look  up  to, 
to  build,  —  a  new  and  lawful  Babel ;  and  therefore  it 
had  an  aspe6l  more  like  a  religion.  Well,  love  is 
religion  too,  and  of  the  best ;  and  so  we  will  return 
to  our  common  task. 

Now  observe,  O  casual  reader  of  "The  Seer"! 
what  such  of  us  as  are  habituated  to  it  found  in  our 
half-built  street.  You  take  a  brick  perhaps  for  an 
ordinary  bit  of  burnt  clay,  fit  only  to  build  No.  9,  Golf 
Street,  Little  Meadows  ;  and  to  become  a  brick-bat, 
and  be  kicked  to  pieces  in  an  old  alley.  O  thou  of 
little  book-stall !  Why,  the  very  manufa6lure  is  illus- 
trious with  antiquity, —  with  the  morning  beams  that 
touched  the  house-tops  of  Shinaar :  there  is  a  clatter 
of  brick-making  in  the  fields  of  Accad ;  and  the  work 
looks  almost  as  ancient  to  this  day,  with  its  straw-built 
tents  and  its  earthy  landscape.     Not  desolate  therefore, 


150  THE    SEER. 

or  vnirefreshed,  were  we  in  our  new  and  hot  street: 
for  the  first  brick,  Hke  a  tahsman,  ti'ansported  us  into 
old  Babylon,  with  its  tower  and  its  gardens ;  and 
there  we  drove  our  chariot  on  the  walls,  and  com^ersed 
with  Herodotus,  and  got  out  of  the  way  of  Semiramis, 
and  i-ead,  as  men  try  to  read  at  this  day,  the  arrow- 
headed  letters  on  the  bricks,  —  as  easy  to  us  at  that 
time  as  A.  B.  C.  ;  though  what  they  mean  now, 
neither  we  nor  Mr.  Rich  can  tell.  The  said  brick,  as 
our  readci^s  have  seen,  thence  took  us  into  paradise, 
and  so  through  all  the  regions  of  Mesopotamia  and 
the  "  Arabian  Nights,"  with  our  friends  Bochart  and 
Bedreddin  Hassan  ;  and,  returning  home,  what  do  we 
descry  ?  The  street  itself  alone  !  No  :  Ben  Jonson , 
the  most  illustrious  of  bricklayers,  handling  his  trowel 
on  the  walls  of  Chancery  Lane,  and  the  obstinate  rem- 
nants of  Roman  brick  and  mortar  lurking  still  about 
London,  and  Spenser's  celebration  of  — 

"  Those  hrichj  towers, 
The  which  on  Themines  brode  aged  backe  doe  ride, 
Where  now  the  studious  lawyers  have  tlieir  bowres ;  " 

to  wit,  the  Temple  ;  and  then  we  think  of  our  old 
and  pifture-learned  friend,  our  lamented  Hazlitt,  who 
first  taught  us  not  to  think  white  cottages  better  than 
red,  especially  among  trees,  —  noting  to  us  the  finer 
harmony  of  the  contrast  :  to  which  we  can  bear 
instant  and  curious  testimony  ;  for  passing  the  other 
day  through  the  gate  that  leads  from  St.  James's  Park 
into  the  old  court,  betwixt  Sutherland  and  Marlbo- 
rough Houses,  we  mai-velled  at  what  seemed  to  our 
near-sighted  eyes  a  shower  of  red  colors  in  a  ti^ee  to 


BRICKLAYERS,  AND  AN  OLD  BOOK.       151 

the  right  of  us,  at  the  corner ;  which  colors,  upon 
inspection,  jDroved  to  be  notliing  better  than  those  of 
the  very  red  bricks  that  bordered  the  windows  of  the 
building  behind  the  trees.  We  smiled  at  the  mistake  ; 
but  it  was  with  pleasui^e  :  for  it  reminded  us  that  even 
defedls  of  vision  may  have  their  compensations  ;  and 
it  looked  like  a  symbol  of  the  pleasures  witli  which 
fancy  and  commonplace  may  conspire  to  enrich  an 
observer  willing  to  be  pleased. 

The  most  elegant  houses  in  the  world,  generally 
speaking,  are  built  of  clay.  You  have  riches  inside  ; 
costliness  and  beauty  on  the  internal  walls,  —  paint- 
ings, papers,  fine  draperies,  —  themselves  compounded 
of  the  homeliest  growths  of  the  earth :  but,  pierce  an 
inch  or  two  outwards,  and  you  come  to  the  stuft'  of 
which  the  hovel  is  made.  It  is  nothing  but  mind  at 
last  which  throws  elegance  upon  the  richest  as  well  as 
the  poorest  materials.  Let  a  rich  man  give  a  hundred 
guineas  for  a  daub.,  and  people  laugh  at  him  and  his 
daub  together.  The  inside  of  his  wall  is  no  better 
than  his  out.  But  let  him  put  Titian  or  Coireggio 
upon  it,  and  he  puts  viind  there,  —  visible  mind,  and 
therefore  the  most  precious  to  all ;  his  own  mind  too, 
as  well  as  the  painter's ;  for  love  partakes  of  what  it 
loves :  and  yet  the  painter's  visible  mind  is  not  a  bit 
different,  except  in  degree,  from  the  mind  with  which 
every  lover  of  the  graceful  and  the  fiossiblc  may  adorn 
whatsoever  it  looks  upon.  The  obje6l  will  be  perhaps 
rich  in  itself;  but,  if  not,  it  will  be  rich,  somehow  or 
other,  in  association !  And  it  cannot  be  too  often 
repeated,  as  a  trutli  in  stridest  logic,  that  every 
impression  is  real  which   is   a(5tually  made   upon   us, 


152  THE   SEER. 

whether  by  fa6l  or  fancy.  No  minds  entii-ely  divorce 
the  two,  or  can  divorce  them,  even  if  they  evince  the 
spiritual  part  of  their  facidties  in  doing  nothing  bet- 
ter than  taking  a  fancy  to  a  teacup  or  a  hat :  and 
Nature,  we  may  be  assured,  intended  that  we  should 
receive  pleasure  from  the  associations  of  ideas,  as  well 
as  from  images  tangible  ;  for  all  mankind^  more  or 
less^  do  so.  The  great  art  is  to  cultivate  impressions 
of  the  pleasant  sort ;  just  as  a  man  will  raise  whole- 
some plants  in  his  garden,  and  not  poisonous  ones. 

A  bricklayer's  tools  may  illustrate  a  passage  in 
Shakespeare.  One  of  them  is  called  a  bevel.,  and  is 
used  to  cut  the  under-side  of  bricks  to  a  required 
angle.     "  Bevel "  is  a  sort  of  irregular  square. 

"  They  that  level 
At  my  abuses,  reckon  up  then:  own. 
I  may  be  straight,  though  they  themselves  be  hevd." 

Sonnet  cxxi. 

We  shall  conclude  this  paper  with  two  brick-laying 
anecdotes,  one  of  which  has  more  manner  than 
matter ;  but  there  is  an  ease  in  it,  very  comforting, 
when  we  refledl  upon  the  laboriousness  of  the  occupa- 
tion in  a  hot  .day.  And  this  reminds  us,  that,  in 
considering  the  bricklayer,  we  must  not  forget  how 
many  of  his  hours  he  passes  in  a  world  of  his  own, 
though  in  the  streets,  —  pacing  on  scaffolding,  de- 
scending and  ascending  ladders,  living  on  the  outsides 
of  houses,  betwixt  ground-floors  and  garrets  or  the 
sun,  now  catching  a  breeze  unknown  to  us  prisoners 
of  the  pavement.  We  have  heard  of  a  bricklayer  who 
was  a  somnambulist  by  daytime,  and  used  to  go  on 


BRICKLAYERS,    AND   AN    OLD   BOOK.  153 

with  his  work  in  tliat  state,  along  the  precipices  of 
parapet- walls,  overlooking  us  from  the  top,  —  now 
burning  in  and  the  nice  points  of  tops  of  ladders.  But 
to  our  anecdotes. 

An  acquaintance  of  ours  was  passing  a  street  in 
which  Irish  bricklayers  were  at  work  ;  when  he  heard 
one  of  them  address,  from  below,  another  who  was 
sending  him  baskets  down  by  a  rope.  "  Lour  asy, 
wou'd  you  ?  "  said  he  ;  meaning  that  his  friend  was  to 
loiver  the  baskets  in  a  style  less  hasty  and  inconve- 
nient. '■'•  Lour  asyl"  exclaimed  the  other,  in  a  tone 
indignant  at  having  the  quiet  perfe6lion  of  his  move- 
ments called  in  question,  and  in  the  very  phraseology 
of  which  we  seem  to  hear  the  Hibernian  elevation  of 
his  eyebrows,  as  well  as  the  rough  lightness  of  his 
voice,  —  "  I  lour  so  asy,  I  don't  know  how  I  lour." 

The  other  story  appears  to  us  to  exhibit  the  very 
prince  of  bulls,  —  the  prize  animal  in  that  species  of 
cattle.  An  Irish  laborer  laid  a  wager  with  another, 
that  the  latter  could  not  cai-iy  him  up  the  ladder  to  the 
top  of  a  house  in  his  hod,  without  letting  him  fall. 
Agreed.  The  hod  is  occupied,  the  ladder  ascended  : 
there  is  peril  at  every  step.  Above  all,  there  is  life 
and  tlie  loss  of  the  wager  at  the  top  of  the  ladder ; 
death  and  success  below !  The  house-top  is  reached 
in  safety :  the  wagerer  looks  humbled  and  disap- 
pointed. "  Well,"  said  he,  "  you  have  won ;  there  is 
no  doubt  of  tliat :  worse  luck  to  you  another  time ! 
But,  at  the  third  story,  /  had  hopes." 


154 


A    RAINY    DAY. 


^^^^  OUR,  pour,  pour !  There  is  no  hope  of 
*^  its  leaving  off"  says  a  lady,  turning  away 
from  the  window  :  "  you  must  make  up  your 
mind,  Louisa,  to  stay  at  home,  and  lose  your  romps, 
and  have  a  whole  frock  to  sit  in  at  dinner,  and  be  very 
vmhappy  with  mamma." 

"No,  mamma,  not  that;  but  don't  you  think  it  will 
Jiold  up  ?  Look,  the  kennels  are  not  quite  so  bad  ; 
and  those  clouds  —  they  are  not  so  heavy  as  they  were. 
It  is  getting  quite  light  in  the  sky." 

"  I  am  afraid  not,"  says  the  lady,  at  once  grave  and 
smiling.  "  But  you  are  a  good  girl,  Louisa  :  give  me 
a  kiss.  We  will  make  the  day  as  happy  as  we  can  at 
home.  I  am  not  a  very  bad  play-fellow,  you  know, 
for  all  i  am  so  mvich  bigger  and  older." 

"  O  mamma !  you  know  I  never  enjoy  my  cousins' 
company  half  so  much,  if  you  don't  go  with  me  ;  but 
(here  two  or  three  kisses  are  given  and  taken,  the 
lady's  hands  holding  the  little  girl's  cheeks,  and  her 
eyes  looking  fondly  into  hers,  which  are  a  little  wet) 
—  but  —  but  don't  you  think  we  really  shall  be  able  to 
go?  don't  you  think  it  will  hold  ?//f  "  And  here  the 
child  returns  to  the  window. 

"  No,  my  darling :    it  is  set  in  for  a  rainy  day.     It 


A    RAINY    DAV.  1 55 

has  been  raining  all  tlie  morning :  it  is  now  afternoon  ; 
Jiind  we  have,  I  fear,  no  chance  whatever." 

"  The  puddles  don't  dance  quite  as  fast  as  they  did," 
says  the  little  girl. 

"  But  hark  !  "  says  tlie  lady  :  "  there^s  a  furious  dash 
of  water  against  the  panes." 

"  Tl  t ! "  quoth  the  little  girl  against  her  teeth : 
"  dear  me  !  It's  very  bad  indeed  !  I  wonder  what 
Charles  and  Mary  are  thinking  of  it." 

"  Why,  they  are  thinking  just  as  you  are,  I  dare 
say  ;  and  doing  just  as  you  are,  very  likely,  —  making 
tlieir  noses  flat  and  numb  against  the  glass." 

The  little  girl  laughs,  with  a  tear  in  her  eye ;  and 
mamma  laughs,  and  kisses  her,  and  says,  "  Come  :  as 
you  cannot  go  to  see  your  cousins,  you  shall  have  a 
visitor  yourself.  You  shall  invite  me  and  Miss  Nayler 
to  dinner,  and  sit  at  the  head  of  the  table  in  the  little 
room  ;  and  we  will  have  your  favorite  pudding,  and 
no  servant  to  wait  on  us.  We  will  wait  on  ourselves, 
little  child,  and  behave  well ;  and  you  shall  tell  papa, 
when  he  comes  home,  what  a  nice  and  I  will  try  to 
be  a  very  great,  good,  big  girl  I  was." 

"  Oh,  dear,  mamma  !  that  will  be  very  pleasant. 
What  a  nice,  kind  mamma  you  are  !  and  how  afraid  I 
am  to  vex  you,  though  you  do  play  and  romp  with 
me!" 

"Good  girl!  But  —  ah!  you  need  not  look  at  the 
window  any  more,  my  poor  Louisa.  Go,  and  tell 
cook  about  the  pudding;  and  we  will  get  you  to  give 
us  a  glass  of  wine  after  it,  and  drink  the  health  of  your 
cousins,  so  as  to  fancy  them  partaking  it  with  us ;  and 
Miss  Nayler  and  I  will  make  fine  speeches,  and   re- 


156  THE    SEER. 

turn  you  their  thanks ;  and  then  you  can  tell  them 
about  it,  when  you  go  next  time.'' 

"  O  dear,  dear,  dear  mamma !  so  I  can ;  and  how 
very  nice  that  will  be  !  And  I'll  go  this  instant  about 
the  pudding :  and  I  don't  think  we  could  go  as  far  as 
Welland's  now,  if  the  rain  did  hold  up ;  and  the 
puddles  are  worse  than  ever." 

And  so  ofl'  runs  little  fond-heart  and  bright-eyes, 
happy  at  dining  in  fancy  with  her  mother  and  cousins 
all  at  once,  and  almost  feeling  as  if  she  had  but  ex- 
changed one  holiday  for  another. 

The  sight  of  mother  and  daughter  has  made  us 
forget  our  rainy  day.  Alas  !  the  lady  was  right,  and 
the  little  child  wrong  ;  for  there  is  no  chance  of  to-day's 
clearing  up.  The  long-watched  and  interesting  pud- 
dles are  not  indeed  "  worse  than  ever,"  —  not  suddenly 
hurried  and  exasperated,  as  if  dancing  with  rage  at 
the  flogging  given  them  :  they  are  worse  even  than 
that ;  for  they  are  everlastingly  the  same,  —  the  same 
full,  twittering,  dancing,  circle-making  overflowings 
of  gutter  which  they  have  been  ever  since  five  in  the 
morning,  and  which  they  mean  to  be,  apparently,  till 
five  to-morrow. 

Wash,  wash,  wash  !  The  window  -  panes,  welter- 
ing and  dreary  and  rapid,  and  misty  with  the  rain, 
are  like  the  face  of  a  crying  child  who  is  afraid  to 
make  a  noise,  but  who  is  resolved  to  be  as  "  aggra- 
vating" as  possible  with  the  piteous  ostentation  of  his 
wet  cheeks ;  weeping  with  all  his  might,  and  breath- 
ing, with  wide-open  mouth,  a  sort  of  huge,  wilful, 
evei-lasting  sigh,  by  way  of  accompaniment.  Occa- 
sionally he  puts  his  hand  over  to  his  ear,  —  hollow, — 


A   RAINY   DAY.  157 

as  though  he  feared  to  touch  it,  his  master  having 
given  him  a  gentle  pinch  ;  and,  at  the  same  moment, 
lie  stoops  with  bent  head  and  shrugged  shoulders,  and 
one  lifted  knee,  as  if  in  the  endurance  of  a  w^rithing 
anguish. 

You  involuntarily  rub  one  of  the  panes,  thinking  to 
see  the  better  into  the  street,  and  forgetting  that  the 
mist  is  made  by  the  rain  on  the  other  side.  On  goes 
the  wet  as  ever,  rushing,  streaming,  running  down, 
mingling  its  soft  and  washy  channels  ;  and  now  and 
then  comes  a  clutter  of  drops  against  the  glass,  made 
by  a  gust  of  wind. 

Clack,  meantime,  goes  the  sound  of  pattens ;  and, 
when  you  do  see,  you  see  the  street  almost  deserted,  — 
a  sort  of  lay  Sunday.  The  rare  carriages  drive  as  fast 
as  they  can  ;  the  hackney-coaches  lumber  along,  glossy 
(on  such  occasions  only)  with  the  wet,  and  looking  as 
old  and  rheumatic  as  the  poor  coachmen,  whose  hats 
and  legs  are  bound  with  straw ;  the  rain-spouts  are 
sputtering  torrents  ;  messengers  dart  along  in  oil-skin 
capes  ;  the  cry  of  the  old  shrimp-seller  is  hoarse  ;  the 
postman's  knock  is  ferocious. 

If  you  are  out  of  doors,  woe  betide  you,  should  you 
have  gone  out  unprepared,  or  relying  on  a  coach ! 
Your  shoes  and  stockings  are  wet  through,  the  latter 
almost  as  muddy  as  the  dog  that  ran  by  just  now 
without  an  owner ;  the  rain  washes  your  face,  gets 
into  the  nape  of  your  neck,  makes  a  spout  of  your  hat. 
Close  by  your  ears  comes  roaring  an  uml^rella,  the 
face  underneath  it  looking  astonislied  at  you.  A 
butcher's  boy  dashes  along,  and  contrives  to  come  with 
his  heel  plump  upon  the  exa<5l  spot  of  a  loose  piece  of 


I5S  THE    SEKR. 

pavement,  requisite  for  giving  you  a  splash  that  shall 
embrace  the  whole  of  your  left  leg.  To  stand  up 
under  a  gateway  is  impossible,  because,  in  the  state 
you  are  in,  you  will  catch  your  "  death  o'cold  ; "  and 
the  people  underneath  it  look  at  you  amazed,  to  think 
how  you  could  have  come  out  "  such  a  day,  in  such  a 
state."  Many  of  those  who  are  standing  up  have 
umbrellas ;  but  the  very  umbrellas  are  wet  through. 
Those  who  pass  by  the  spot,  with  their  oil  or  silk 
skins  roaring  as  above  (a  sound  particularly  distress- 
ing to  the  non-possessors),  show  that  they  have  not 
been  out  of  doors  so  long.  Nobody  puts  his  hand  out 
from  under  the  gateway  to  feel  whether  it  is  still 
raining :  there  can  be  no  question  of  it.  The  only 
voluntary  person  visible  in  the  street  is  a  little  errand- 
boy,  who,  because  his  mother  has  told  him  to  make 
great  haste,  and  not  get  wet  feet,  is  amusing  himself 
M'ith  double  zest  by  kicking  something  along  through 
the  gutter. 

In  private  streets,  the  pavement  is  washed  clean  ; 
and  so  it  is  for  the  moment  in  public :  but  horrible 
will  be  the  mud  to-morrow.  Horses  are  splashed  up 
to  the  mane :  the  legs  of  the  rider's  overalls  are  as  if 
he  had  been  sitting  in  a  ditch.  Poor  girls  with  band- 
boxes trip  patiently  along,  with  their  wet  curls  over 
their  eyes,  and  a  weight  of  skirt.  A  carriage  is  com- 
ing down  a  nari'ow  street :  there  is  a  plenitude  of  mud 
between  you  and  the  wheels,  not  to  be  eschewed.  On 
dash  they,  and  give  you  tliree  beauty  spots,  one  right 
on  the  nose. 

Swift  has  described  such  a  day  as  this  in  lines 
which    first    appeared    in    the    "  Tatler,"    and   which 


A    RAINY    DAY.  1 59 

hearty,  unenvying  Steele  introduces  as  written  by  one 
"  who  treats  of  every  subje6t  after  a  manner  that  no 
other  author  has  done,  and  better  than  any  other  can 
do."  [In  transcribing  such  woi'ds,  one's  pen  seems  to 
partake  the  pleasure  of  the  writer.]  Swift,  availing 
himself  of  the  license  of  a  difterent  age,  is  apt  to  bring 
less  pleasant  images  among  his  plpasant  ones  tlian 
suit  everybody  now  ;  but  here  follows  the  greater  part 
of  his  verses  :  — 

"  Careful  observers  may  foretell  the  hour, 
By  sure  prognostics,  wlien  to  dread  a  shower : 
While  rain  depends,  the  pensive  cat  gives  o'er 
Her  frolics,  and  pursues  her  tail  no  more. 
If  you  be  wise,  then  go  not  far  to  dine  : 
You'll  spend  in  coach-hire  more  than  save  in  wine. 
A  coming  shower  your  shooting  corns  presage. 
Old  aches  will  tlirob,  your  hollow  tooth  will  rage. 
Sauntering  in  coffee-house  is  Dulman  seen  : 
He  damns  the  climate,  and  complains  of  spleen. 

Meanwhile  the  south,  rising  with  dabbled  wings, 
A  sable  cloud  athwart  the  welkin  flings. 

Brisk  Susan  whips  her  linen  from  the  rope, 

While  the  first  drizzling  shower  is  borne  aslope  : 

Such  is  that  sprinkling  which  some  careless  quean 

Flirts  on  you  from  her  mop,  but  not  so  clean. 

You  fly ;  invoke  the  gods  ;  then,  turning,  stop 

To  rail :  she,  sin(jin(j,  still  luhirls  on  her  mop. 

Not  yet  the  dust  liad  shimned  the  unequal  strife. 

But,  aided  by  the  wind,  fought  still  for  life  ; 

And,  wafted  with  its  foe  by  violent  gust, 

'Twas  doubtful  which  was  rain,  and  which  was  dust. 

Ah  !  where  must  needy  poet  seek  for  aid, 

AVhen  dust  and  rain  at  once  his  coat  invade, — 

His  only  coat,  where  dust,  confused  with  rain. 

Roughens  the  nap,  and  leaves  a  mingled  stiiin  ? 


l6o  THE   SEER. 

Now  in  contiguous  drops  the  flood  comes  down, 
Threatening  with  deluge  tliis  devoted  town. 
To  sliops  in  crowds  the  draggled  females  fly ; 
Pretend  to  cheapen  goods,  but  nothing  buy. 
The  Templar  spruce,  while  every  spout's  abroach. 
Stays  till  'tis  fair,  yet  seems  to  call  a  coach. 
The  tucked-up  seamstress  walks  with  hasty  strides. 
While  streams  run  down  her  oiled  mnbrella's  sides. 
There  various  kinds,  by  various  fortunes  led. 
Commence  acquaintance  underneath  a  shed. 
Trimnphant  Tories  and  desponding  Whigs 
Forget  their  feuds,  and  join  to  save  their  wigs. 
Boxed  in  a  chair,*  the  beau  impatient  sits. 
While  spouts  7'un  clattanng  o'er  tJie  roof  by  Jits : 
And  ever  and  anon,  with  frightful  din. 
The  leather  sounds ;  he  trembles  from  witliin. 
So  when  Troy  chairmen  bore  the  wooden  steed, 
Pregnant  with  Greeks,  impatient  to  be  freed, 
(Those  bully  Greeks,  who,  as  the  moderns  do. 
Instead  oj" paying  chairmen,  ran  them  through,) 
Laocoon  struck  the  outside  with  his  spear. 
And  each  imprisoned  hero  q[uaked  for  fear." 

The  description  concludes  witli  a  triumphant  ac- 
count of  a  gutter,  more  civic  than  urbane. 

How  to  make  the  best  of  a  bad  day  has  been 
taught  by  implication  in  various  pages  throughout 
our  writings,  especially  in  those  where  we  have 
studied  tlie  art  of  making  every  thing  out  of  nothing, 
and  have  delivered  immense  observations  on  rain- 
drops. It  may  be  learned  in  the  remarks  which 
appeared  in  our  article  on  a  "  Dusty  Day."  The 
secret  is  short  and  comprehensive,  and  fit  for  trying 
occasions  of  all  sorts.      Think  of  S07nethi7ig  superior 

•  A  sedan. 


A  RAINY   DAY.  l6l 

to  it ;   make   it  yield  entertaining  and  useful  reflec- 
tion, as  the  rain  itself  brings  out  the  flowers.     Think 
of  it  as  a  benignant  enemy,  who  keeps  you  in-doors, 
or  otherwise  puts  your  philosophy  to  a  trial,  for  the 
best  of  purposes,  —  to  fertilize  your  fields  ;    to  purify 
your   sti-eets   against  contagion  ;    to  freshen  your  air 
and  put  sweets  upon  your  table  ;  to  furnish  life  with 
variety,  your  light  with  a  shadow  that  sets  it  off',  your 
poets  with  similes  and  descriptions.     When  the  sum- 
mer rains,  heaven  is  watering  your  plants.     Fancy  an 
inse6t  growling  at  it  under  his  umbrella  of  rose-leaf. 
No  wiser  is  the  man  who  grumbles  under  his   gate- 
way ;  much  less  over  his  port  wine.     Very  high-bred 
ladies  would  be  startled  to  learn  that  they  are  doing  a 
very  vulgar  thing  (and  hurting  their  tempers  to  boot), 
when  they  stand  at  a  window,  peevishly  obje6ling  to 
the  rain,  witli  such  phrases  as  "  Dear  me  !    how  tire- 
some ! "      My   lady's    maid    is   not   a   bit   less   polite, 
when  she  vows  and  "purtests"  that  it  is  "  quite  con- 
trary" —  as    if  Heaven   had    sent   it   on    purpose    to 
thwart   her    ladyship    and    her   waiting-woman !     By 
complaint  we  dwindle   and   subjedt   ourselves,   make 
ourselves  little-minded,  and  the  slaves  of  circumstance. 
By  rising  above  an  evil,  we  set  it  at  a  distance  from 
us,  render  it  a  small  object,  and  live  in  a  nobler  air. 

A  wit,  not  unworthy  to  be  named  in  the  same  page 
with  the  Dean  of  St.  Patrick's,  has  given  a  good 
lesson  on  the  subject,  —  Green,  in  his  poem  on  the 
"Spleen;"  a  teacher  the  fittest  in  the  world  to  be 
heard  upon  it,  because  he  was  subjedl  to  what  he 
writes  about,  and  overcame  it  by  the  cultivation  of 
sense  and  good  temper.     Some  bookseller  with  a  taste, 

VOL.   I.  14 


l62  THE   SEER. 

who  deals  in  that  species  of  pubhcation,  should  give 
us  a  new  edition  of  this  poem,  with  engravings.  Wil- 
kie,  Mulready,  and  others,  might  find  subje6ts  enough 
to  furnish  a  design  to  every  page. 

"  In  rainy  days  keep  double  guard, 
Or  spleen  will  surely  be  too  hard  ; 
Which,  like  those  fish  hy  sailors  met, 
Fly  highest  when  their  wings  are  wet. 
In  such  dull  weather,  so  unfit 
To  enterprise  a  work  of  wit ; 
When  clouds  one  yard  of  azure  sky 
That's  fit  for  simile  deny,  — 
I  dress  my  face  with  studious  looks. 
And  shorten  tedious  hours  with  books : 
But  if  dull  fogs  invade  the  head. 
That  memory  minds  not  what  is  read, 
I  sit  in  windows  dry  as  ark, 
And  on  the  drowning  world  remark ; 
Or  to  some  coffee-house  I  stray 
For  news,  the  manna  of  the  day, 
And  from  the  hipped  discourses  gather 
That  pohtics  go  by  the  weather ; 
Then  seek  good-humored  tavern-chums. 
And  play  at  cards,  but  for  small  sums  •, 
Or  with  the  merry  fellows  quaff. 
And  laugh  aloud  with  them  that  laugh  ; 
Or  drink  a  joco-serious  cup 
With  souls  who've  took  their  freedom  up ; 
And  let  my  mind,  beguiled  by  talk. 
In  Epicurus'  garden  walk. 
Who  thought  it  heaven  to  be  serene  ; 
Pain,  hell ;  and  purgatory,  spleen." 


163 


THE    EAST    WIND. 


]ID  any  body  ever  hear  of  the  east  wind  when 
he  was  a  boy?  We  remember  no  such 
thing.  We  never  heard  a  word  about  it  all 
the  time  we  were  at  school.  There  was  the  school- 
master with  his  yeriila  ;  but  there  was  no  east  wind. 
Our  elders  might  have  talked  about  it ;  but  such  ca- 
lamities of  theirs  are  inaudible  in  the  ears  of  the 
juvenile.  A  fine  day  was  a  fine  day,  let  the  wind  be 
in  what  quarter  it  miglit.  While  writing  this  article, 
we  hear  everybody  complaining  that  the  fine  weather 
is  polluted  by  the  presence  of  the  east  wind.  It  has 
lasted  so  long  as  to  force  itself  upon  people's  attention. 
The  ladies  confess  their  exasperation  with  it,  for  mak- 
ing free  without  being  agreeable  ;  and  as  ladies'  quar- 
rels are  to  be  taken  up,  and  there  is  no  other  way  of 
grappling  with  this  invisible  enemy,  we  have  put  our- 
selves in  a  state  of  editorial  resentment,  and  have 
resolved  to  write  an  article  against  it. 

The  winds  are  among  the  most  mysterious  of  the 
operations  of  the  elements.  We  know  not  whence 
they  come,  or  whither  they  go  ;  how  they  spring  up, 
or  how  fall ;  why  they  prevail  so  long,  after  such  and 
such  a  fashion,  in  certain  quarters ;  nor,  above  all, 
why  some  of  them  should  be  at  once  so  lasting  and 


164  THE   SEER. 

apparently  so  pernicious.  We  know  some  of  their 
uses ;  but  there  is  a  great  deal  about  them  we  do  not 
know,  and  it  is  difficult  to  put  them  to  the  question. 
As  the  sailor  said  of  the  ghosts,  "  We  do  not  under- 
stand their  tackle."  What  is  very  curious  is,  there 
seems  to  be  one  of  tliem  which  prevails  in  some  par- 
ticular quarter,  and  has  a  character  for  malignity.  In 
the  South,  there  is  the  Sirocco^  —  an  ugly  customer, 
dark,  close,  suffocating,  making  melancholy ;  which 
blots  the  sky,  and  deje6ts  the  spirits  of  the  most  lively. 
In  the  Oriental  parts  of  the  earth,  there  is  the  Tifoon, 
supposed  by  some  to  be  the  Typhon  or  Evil  Principle 
of  the  ancients ;  and  in  Europe  we  have  the  East 
Wind,  whom  the  ancients  reckoned  among  the  sons 
of  Typhon.  The  winds,  Mr.  Keightley  tells  us,  were 
divided  by  the  Greeks  into  '■'■  wholesome  and  noxious; 
the  former  of  which,  Boreas  (North  Wind),  Zephyrus 
(West  Wind),  and  Notus  (South  Wind),  were,  ac- 
cording to  Hesiod,  the  children  of  Astrjeus  {Starry) 
and  Eos  {Dawn).  The  other  winds,  he  says  (proba- 
bly meaning  only  those  who  blow  from  the  east),  are 
the  race  of  Typhoeus,  whom  he  describes  as  the  last 
and  most  terrible  child  of  Earth.  In  Greece,  as  over 
the  rest  of  Europe,  the  East  Wind  was  pernicious." 

In  England,  the  east  wind  is  accounted  pernicious 
if  it  last  long ;  and  it  is  calculated,  we  believe,  that  it 
blows  during  three  parts  even  of  our  fine  weather. 
We  have  known  a  single  blast  of  it  blight  a  long  row 
of  plants  in  a  greenhouse.  Its  effedls  upon  the  veget- 
able creation  are  sure  to  be  visible,  if  it  last  any  time  ; 
and  it  puts  invalids  into  a  very  unpleasant  state,  by 
drying  the  pores  of  the  skin,  and  thus  giving  adlivity 


THE    EAST    WIND.  "  165 

to  those  numerous  internal  disorders,  of  which  none 
are  more  painful  than  what  the  moderns  call  nei"vous- 
ness,  and  our  fathers  understood  by  the  name  of  the 
"vapors"  or  the  "  spleen,"  which,  as  Shenstone  ob- 
served, is  often  little  else  than  obstiiidled  perspiration. 
An  irritable  poet  exclaimed, — 

"  Scarce  in  a  showerless  day  the  heavens  indulge 
Our  melting  clime,  except  the  baleful  East 
Withers  the  tender  spring,  and  sourly  checks 
The  fancy  of  the  year.  Our  fathers  talked 
Of  summers,  balmy  airs,  and  skies  serene  : 
Good  Heaven !  for  what  imexpiated  crimes 
Tliis  dismal  change  ?  " 

This  terrible  question  we  shall  answer  joresently. 
Meantime,  the  suffering  poet  may  be  allowed  to  have 
been  a  little  irritated.  It  is  certainly  provoking  to 
have  this  invisible  enemy  invading  a  whole  nation  at 
his  will,  and  sending  among  us,  for  weeks  together, 
his  impertinent  and  cutting  influence  ;  drying  up  our 
skins,  blowing  dust  in  our  eyes,  contradicting  our 
sunshine,  smoking  our  suburbs,  behaving  boisterously 
to  our  women,  aggravating  our  scolds,  withering  up 
our  old  gentlemen  and  ladies,  nullifying  the  respite 
from  smoke  at  Bow,  perplexing  our  rooms  between 
hot  and  cold,  closing  up  our  windows,  exasperating 
our  rheumatisms,  basely  treating  the  wounds  of  our 
old  soldiers,  spoiling  our  gardens,  preventing  our 
voyages,  assisting  thereby  our  Bow  -  street  runners, 
hurting  our  tempers,  increasing  our  melancholies, 
deteriorating  our  night-airs,  showing  our  wives'  ankles, 
disordering  our  little  children,  not  being  good  for  our 
beasts,  perplexing  our  pantaloons  (to  know  which  to 


l66  THE    SEER. 

put  on),  deranging  our  ringlets,  scarifying  our  eyes, 
thinning  our  apple  -  tarts,  endangering  our  dances, 
getting  damned  our  weathercocks,  barbarizing  our 
creditors,  incapacitating  our  debtors,  obstructing  all 
moist  processes  in  the  arts,  hindering  our  astrono- 
mers,* tiring  our  editors,  and  endangering  our  sales. 

The  poet  asks  what  crimes  could  have  brought  upon 
us  the  evils  of  our  climate?  He  should  ask  the 
schoolboy  that  runs  about,  the  Gypsy  who  laughs  at 
the  climate,  or  the  ghost  of  some  old  English  yeoman 
before  taxes  and  sedentary  living  abounded.  An 
east  wind,  like  eveiy  other  evil,  except  folly  and  ill 
intention,  is  found,  when  properly  grappled  with,  to 
be  not  only  no  evil,  but  a  good,  at  least  a  negative 
one,  sometimes  a  positive ;  and  even  folly  and  ill 
intention  are  but  the  mistakes  of  a  community  in  its 
progress  from  bad  to  good.  How  evil  comes  at  all, 
we  cannot  say.  It  suffices  us  to  believe,  that  it  is  in 
its  nature  fugitive  ;  and  that  it  is  the  nature  of  good, 
when  good  returns,  to  outlast  it  beyond  all  calculation. 
If  we  led  the  natural  lives  to  which  we  hope  and 
believe  that  the  advance  of  knowledge  and  comfort 
will  bring  us  round,  we  should  feel  the  east  wind  as 
little  as  the  Gypsies  do  :  it  would  be  the  same  refresh- 
ment to  us  that  it  is  to  the  glowing  schoolboy,  after 
his  exercise  ;  and  as  to  nipping  our  fruits  and  flowers, 
some  living  creature  makes  a  dish  of  them,  if  we  do 
not.  With  these  considerations,  we  should  be  well 
content  to  recognize  the  concordia  discors  that  har- 
monizes the   inanimate   creation.     If  it  were   not  for 

*  During  east  winds,  astronomers  are  unable  to  pursue  their  observa- 
tions, on  account  of  a  certain  hazy  motion  in  the  air. 


THE    F.ASr    WIND.  1 67 

the  east  wind  in  this  country,  we  should  probably 
have  too  much  wet ;  our  winters  would  not  dry  up  ; 
our  June  fields  would  be  unpassable ;  we  should  not 
be  able  to  enjoy  the  west  wind  itself,  the  Zephyr 
with  his  lap  full  of  flowers.  And,  upon  the  supposi- 
tion that  tliere  is  no  peril  in  the  east  wind  that  may 
not  ultimately  be  nullified,  we  need  not  trouble  our- 
selves with  the  question,  why  the  danger  of  excessive 
moisture  must  be  counteradled  by  a  wind  full  of  dry- 
ness. All  the  excesses  of  the  elements  will  one  day 
be  pastime  for  the  healthy  arms  and  discerning  facul- 
ties of  discovering  man. 

And  so  we  finish  our  vituperations  in  the  way  in 
which  such  things  ought  generally  to  be  finished,  with 
a  discovery  that  the  fault  obje6led  to  is  in  ourselves, 
and  renewed  admiration  of  the  abundance  of  promise 
in  all  the  works  of  Nature. 


i6S 


STRAWBERRIES. 
Written  in  Jtine. 


F  our  article  on  this  subjedl  should  be  woi'th 
little  (especially  as  we  are  obliged  to  be 
brief,  and  cannot  bring  to  our  assistance  much 
quotation  or  other  helps) ,  we  beg  leave  to  say,  that  we 
mean  to  do  little  more  in  it  than  congratulate  the 
reader  on  the  strawberry-season,  and  imply  those  plea- 
sant interchanges  of  conventional  sympathy  which 
give  rise  to  the  common  expressions  about  the  weather 
or  the  state  of  the  harvest,  —  things  which  everybody 
knows  what  everybody  else  will  say  about  them,  and 
yet  upon  which  everybody  speaks.  Such  a  charm  has 
sympathy,  even  in  its  cominonest  aspedl. 

A.  A  fine  day  to-day. 

B.  Very  fine  day. 

A.  But  I  think  we  shall  have  rain. 

B.  I  think  we  shall. 

And  so  the  two  speakers  part,  all  the  better  pleased 
with  one  another  merely  for  having  uttered  a  few 
words,  and  those  words  such  as  either  of  them  could 
have  reckoned  upon  beforehand,  and  has  interchanged 
a  thousand  times.  And  justly  are  they  pleased. 
They  are  fellow-creatures  living  in  the  same  world ; 
and  all  its  phases  are  of  importance  to  them,  and 
themselves    to    one    another.     The    meaning    of   the 


STRAWBERRIES.  169 

words  is,  "I  feel  as  you  do  ; "  or,  "  I  am  interested  in 
the  same  subject,  and  it  is  a  pleasure  to  me  to  let 
you  ^ee  it."  What  a  pity  that  mankind  do  not  vent 
the  same  feelings  of  good-will  and  a  mutual  under- 
standing on  fifty  other  subje6ls  !  And  many  do  ;  but 
all  might,  and,  as  Bentham  says,  "  with  how  little 
trouble  ! " 

There  is  strau^berry-zueather^  for  instance,  which  is 
as  good  a  point  of  the  weatlier  to  talk  about  as  rain 
or  sun.  If  the  phrase  seems  a  little  forced,  it  is  per- 
haps not  so  much  as  it  seems ;  for  the  weather  and 
fruit  and  color  and  the  birds,  &c.,  &c.,  all  hang  to- 
gether :  and,  for  our  parts,  we  would  fain  think,  and 
can  easily  believe,  that  without  this  special  degree  of 
heat  (while  we  are  writing),  or  mixture  of  heat  and 
fresh  air,  the  strawberries  would  not  have  their  special 
degree  of  color  and  fragrance.  The  world  answers  to 
the  spirit  that  pla3S  upon  it,  as  musical  instruments 
to  musician ;  and  if  cloud,  sunshine,  and  breeze  (the 
fine  playing  of  Natiu-e)  did  not  descend  upon  earth 
precisely  as  they  do  at  this  moment,  there  is  good 
reason  to  conclude,  that  neither  fruit,  nor  any  thing 
else,  would  be  precisely  what  it  is.  The  cuckoo 
would  want  tone,  and  the  strawberries  relish. 

Do  you  not  like,  reader,  the  pottle  of  strawberries? 
and  is  it  not  manifest,  from  old  habit  and  association, 
that  no  other  sort  of  basket  would  do  as  well  for  their 
first  arrival?  It  "  carries "  well ;  it  lies  on  your  arm 
like  a  length  of  freshness  :  then  there  is  the  slight 
paper  covering,  the  slighter  rush  tie,  the  inner  cover- 
ing of  leaves  ;  and,  when  all  these  give  place,  fresh 
and  fragrant  and  red  lie  the  berries,  —  the  best,  it  is 

VOL.    I.  15 


lyo  THE    SEER. 

to  be  feared,  at  the  top.  Now  and  then  comes  a  half- 
mashed  one,  sweet  in  its  over-ripeness  ;  and,  when  the 
fingers  cannot  conveniently  descend  further,  tlie  rest, 
urged  by  a  beat  on  the  flat  end,  are  poured  out  on 
a  plate,  and  perhaps  agreeably  surprise  us  with  the 
amount.  Meantime,  the  fingers  and  nails  have  got 
coloi^ed  as  with  wine. 

What  matter  of  fadl  is  this  !  And  how  everybody 
knows  it !  And  yet,  for  that  very  reason,  it  is  wel- 
come ;  like  the  antiquities  about  the  weather.  So 
abundant  is  Nature  in  supplying  us  with  entertain- 
ment, even  by  means  of  simply  stating  that  any  thing  is 
what  it  is  1  Paint  a  strawberiy  in  oil ;  and,  provided 
the  representation  be  true,  how  willing  is  everybody 
to  like  it !  And  observe,  even  in  a  smaller  matter, 
how  Nature  heaps  our  resources  one  upon  another,  — 
fust  giving  us  the  thing,  then  the  representation  of  it 
or  power  of  painting  it  (for  art  is  nature  also),  then 
the  power  of  writing  about  it,  the  power  of  thinking, 
the  power  of  giving,  of  receiving,  and  fifty  others. 
Nobles  put  the  leaves  in  their  coronets.  Poets  make 
them  grow  for  ever,  where  they  are  no  longer  to  be 
found.  We  never  pass  by  Ely  Place,  in  Holborn, 
without  seeing  the  street  there  converted  into  a  garden  ; 
and  the  pavement,  to  rows  of  strawberries. 

"  My  Lord  of  Ely,  when  I  was  last  in  Holborn, 
I  saw  good  strawberries  in  your  garden  there : 
I  do  beseech  you,  send  for  some  of  them,"  — 

quoth  Richard  the  Third  to  the  bishop,  in  that  scene 
of  frightful  calmness  and  smooth-speaking  which  pre- 
cedes his  burst  of  thunder  against  Hastings.     Richard 


STRAWBERRIES.  I^I 

is  gone  with  his  bad  passions,  and  the  garden  is 
gone  ;  but  the  tyrant  is  converted  into  poetry,  and  the 
strawberries  also  ;  and  here  we  have  them  both, 
equally  harmless. 

Sir  John  Suckling,  in  his  richly  colored  portrait  of 
a  beautiful  girl,  in  the  tragedy  of  "  Brennoralt,"  has 
made  their  dying  leaves  precious :  — 

"  Eyes  full  and  quick, 
Witli  breath  as  sweet  as  double  violets, 
And  wholesome  as  dying  leaves  of  strawberries." 

Strawberries  deserve  all  the  good  things  that  can  be 
said  of  them.  They  are  beautiful  to  look  at,  delicious 
to  eat,  have  a  fine  odor,  and  are  so  wholesome,  that 
they  are  said  to  agree  with  the  weakest  digestions,  and 
to  be  excellent  against  gout,  fever,  and  all  sorts  of 
ailments.  It  is  recorded  of  Fontenelle,  that  he  at- 
tributed his  longevity  to  them,  in  consequence  of  their 
having  regularly  cooled  a  fever  which  he  had  every 
spring ;  and  that  he  used  to  say,  "  If  I  can  but  reach 
the  season  of  strawberries  !  "  Boerhaave  (Mr.  Phillips 
tells  us  in  his  "  History  of  Fruits  ")  looked  upon  their 
continued  use  as  one  of  the  principal  remedies  in  cases 
of  obstrudlion  and  viscidity,  and  in  putrid  disorders ; 
Hoffman  furnished  instances  of  obstinate  disorders 
cured  by  them,  even  consumptions  ;  and  Linnteus  says, 
that,  by  eating  plentifully  of  them,  he  kept  liimself  free 
from  the  gout.     They  are  good  even  for  the  teeth. 

A  fruit  so  very  useful  and  delightful  deserves  a 
better  name  ;  though  the  old  one  is  now  so  identified 
with  its  beauty,  that  it  would  be  a  i^ity  to  get  rid  of  it. 
Nobody    thinks    of   straw,   when    uttering   the    word 


172  THE    SEER. 

"  strawberry,"  but  only  of  color,  fragrance,  and  sweet- 
ness. The  Italian  name  is  -Fragola,  — fragrant.  The 
English  one  originated  in  the  custom  of  putting  straw 
between  the  fruit  and  the  ground,  to  keep  it  dry  and 
clean  ;  or  perhaps,  as  Mr.  Phillips  thinks,  from  a  still 
older  practice,  among  children,  of  threading  the  wild 
berries  upon  straws  of  grass.  He  says  that  this  is 
still  a  custom  in  parts  of  England  where  they  abound, 
and  that  so  many  "  straws  of  berries  "  are  sold  for  a 
penny. 

One  of  the  most  luxurious  of  simple  dishes  is  straw- 
berries and  cream.  The  very  sound  of  the  words 
seems  to  set  one's  page  floating  like  a  bowl.  But 
there  is  an  Italian  poet,  who  has  written  a  whole 
poem  upon  strawberries,  and  who,  with  all  his  love  of 
them,  will  not  hear  of  them  without  sugar.  He  in- 
vokes them  before  him  in  all  their  beauty,  which  he 
acknowledges  with  enthusiasm  ;  and  then  tells  them, 
like  some  capricious  sultan,  that  he  does  not  choose  to 
see  their  faces.  They  must  hide  them,  he  says,  —  put 
on  their  veils ;  to  wit,  of  sugar.  "  Sti^awberries  and 
sugar"  are  to  him  what  "sack  and  sugar"  was  to 
Falstaff,  —  the  indispensable  companions,  the  sover- 
eign remedy  for  all  evil,  the  climax  of  good.  He  finds 
fault  with  Moliere's  "Imaginary  Sick  Man"  for  not 
hating  them  ;  since,  if  he  had  eaten  them,  they  would 
have  cured  his  hypochondria.  As  to  himself,  he  talks 
of  them  as  Fontenelle  would  have  talked,  had  he 
written  Italian  verse  :  — 

"  lo  per  me  d'  esse,  a  boccon  ricchi  e  doppi 
Spesso  rigonfio,  e  rinconforto  il  seno  ; 
E  brontolando  per  dispetto  scoppi 


STRAWBERRIES.  1 73 

Quel  Tecchio  d'  Ippocrasso  e  rli  Galeno, 

Clie  i  giulebbi,  1'  essenzie,  ed  i  sciloppi 

Abborro,  come  1'  ostico  veleno ; 

E  di  Fragole  un'  avida  satolla 

Mi  purga  il  sangue,  e  avviva  ogni  midolla." 

"For  my  part,  I  confess  I  fairly  swill 
And  stufl"  myself  with  strawberries  ;  and  abuse 
The  doctors  all  the  wliile,  draught,  powder,  and  pill ; 
And  wonder  how  any  sane  head  can  choose 
To  have  their  nauseous  jalaps  and  their  bill ; 
All  which,  like  so  much  poison,  I  refuse. 
Give  me  a  glut  of  strawberries ;  and,  lo  ! 
Sweet  through  my  blood,  and  very  bones,  they  go." 

Almost  all  the  writers  of  Italy  who  have  been  wortli 
any  thing  have  been  writers  of  verse  at  one  time  or 
another.  Prose-writers,  historians,  philosophers,  doc- 
tors of  law  and  medicine,  clergymen,  —  all  have  con- 
tributed their  quota  to  the  sweet  art.  The  poet  of 
the  strawberries  was  a  Jesuit,  a  very  honest  man  too, 
notwithstanding  the  odium  upon  his  order's  name ; 
and  a  grave,  eloquent,  and  truly  Christian  theologian, 
of  a  life  recorded  as  "  evangelical."  It  is  delightful 
to  see  what  playfulness  such  a  man  thought  not  in- 
consistent with  the  most  sacred  aspirations.  The 
strawberry  to  him  had  its  merits  in  the  creation,  as 
well  as  the  star ;  and  he  knew  how  to  give  each  its 
due.  Nay,  he  runs  the  joke  down,  like  a  humorist 
who  could  do  nothing  else  but  joke  if  he  pleased,  but 
gracefully  withal,  and  with  a  sense  of  Nature  above 
his  art,  like  a  true  lover  of  poetry.  His  poem  is  in 
two  cantos,  and  contains  upwards  of  nine  hundred 
lines,  ending  in  the  following  bridal  climax,  which 
the  good  Jesuit  seems  to  have  considered  the  highest 


174  THE    SEER. 

one  possible,  and  the  very  cream  even  of  strawberries 
and  sugar.  He  has  been  aposti'ophizing  two  young 
friends  of  his,  newly  married,  of  the  celebrated  Vene- 
tian families  jNIocenigo  and  Loredano ;  and  this  is  the 
blessing  with  which  he  concludes,  pleasantly  smiling 
at  the  end  of  his  gravity :  — 

"  A  questa  coppia  la  serena  pace 
Eternamente  intorno  scherzi  e  voli : 
E  la  ridente  sanitii  vivace 
La  sua  vita  longhissima  consoli ; 
E  la  felicitk  pura  e  verace, 
Non  dal  suo  fianco  un  solo  di  s'  involi  ; 
E  a  dire  che  ogni  cosa  lieta  vada, 
Su  le  Fragole  il  zucchero  le  cada." 

"Around  this  loving  pair  may  joy  serene 
On  wings  of  balm  for  ever  wind  and  play; 
And  laughing  Health  her  roses  shake  between, 
Makmg  their  life  one  long,  sweet,  flowery  way ! 
May  bliss,  true  bliss,  pxire,  self-possessed  of  mien, 
Be  absent  from  their  side,  no,  not  a  day  ! 
Li  short,  to  sum  up  all  that  earth  can  prize, 
May  they  have  sugar  to  tlieir  strawberries  !  " 


^75 


THE    WAITER. 


f^OING  into  tlie  city  the  other  day  upon  busi- 
ness, we  took  a  chop  at  a  tavern,  and  renewed 
our  acquaintance,  after  years  of  interruption, 
with  that  swift  and  untiring  personage,  yclept  a 
waiter.  We  mention  tliis  long  interval  of  acquaint- 
ance in  order  to  account  for  an}^  deficiencies  that  may 
be  found  in  our  description  of  him.  Our  readers, 
perhaps,  will  favor  us  with  a  better.  He  is  a  charac- 
ter before  the  public :  thousands  are  acquainted  with 
him,  and  can  fill  up  the  outline.  But  we  felt  irresist- 
ibly impelled  to  sketch  him ;  like  a  portrait-painter 
who  comes  suddenly  upon  an  old  friend,  or  upon 
an  old  sei'vant  of  the  family. 

We  speak  of  the  waiter  properly  and  generally  so 
called,  —  the  representative  of  the  whole,  real,  official 
race,  —  and  not  of  the  humorist  or  other  eccentric 
genius  occasionally  to  be  found  in  it,  moving  out  of 
the  orbit  of  tranquil  but  fiery  waiting,  not  absorbed, 
not  devout  towards  us,  not  silent  or  monosyllabical, 
—  fellows  that  affect  a  character  beyond  that  of  waiter, 
and  get  spoiled  in  club-rooms,  and  places  of  theatrical 
resort. 

^'our  thorough  waiter  has  no  ideas  out  of  the  sphere 
of  his  duty  and  tlie  business ;   and  yet  he  is  not  nar- 


176  THE    SEER. 

row-minded  either.  He  sees  too  much  variety  of 
character  for  that,  and  has  to  exercise  too  much  con- 
sideration for  the  "  drunken  gentleman."  But  his 
world  is  the  tavern,  and  all  mankind  but  its  visitors. 
His  female  sex  are  the  maid-servants  and  his  young 
mistress,  or  the  widow.  If  he  is  ambitious,  he  aspires 
to  marry  one  of  the  two  latter :  if  otherwise,  and 
IMolly  is  prudent,  he  does  not  know  but  he  may  carry 
her  off  some  day  to  be  mistress  of  the  Golden  Lion  at 
Chinksford,  where  he  will  "  show  off"  in  the  eyes  of 
Betty  Laxon,  who  refused  him.  He  has  no  feeling 
of  noise  itself  but  as  the  sound  of  dining,  or  of  silence 
but  as  a  thing  before  dinner.  Even  a  loaf  with  him 
is  hardly  a  loaf:  it  is  so  many  "breads."  His  long- 
est speech  is  the  making-out  of  a  bill  viva  voce, — 
"  Two  beefs,  one  potatoes,  three  ales,  two  wines,  six 
and  twopence,"  —  which  he  does  with  an  indifferent 
celerity,  amusing  to  new-comers  who  have  been  re- 
lishing their  fare,  and  not  considering  it  as  a  mere  set 
of  items.  He  attributes  all  virtues  to  everybody, 
provided  they  are  civil  and  liberal ;  and  of  the  exist- 
ence of  some  vices  he  has  no  notion.  Gluttony,  for 
instance,  with  him,  is  not  only  inconceivable,  but  looks 
very  like  a  virtue.  He  sees  in  it  only  so  many  more 
"  beefs,"  and  a  generous  scorn  of  the  bill.  As  to 
wine,  or  almost  any  other  liquor,  it  is  out  of  your 
power  to  astonish  him  with  the  quantity  you  call  for. 
His  "Yes,  sir,"  is  as  swift,  indifferent,  and  official 
at  the  fifth  bottle  as  at  the  first.  Reform  and  other 
public  events  he  looks  upon  purely  as  things  in  the 
newspaper  ;  and  the  newspaper  as  a  thing  taken  in  at 
taverns,  for  gentlemen  to  read.     His  own  reading  is 


THE    WAITER.  1 77 

confined  to  "Accidents  and  Offences,"  and  the  adver- 
tisements for  butlers  ;  which  latter  he  peiTJses  with  an 
admiring  fear,  not  choosing  to  give  up  "a  certainty." 
When  young,  he  was  always  in  a  hurry,  and  exasper- 
ated his  mistress  by  running  against  the  other  waiters, 
and  breaking  the  "  neguses."  As  he  gets  older,  he 
learns  to  unite  swiftness  with  caution ;  declines  wast- 
ing his  breath  in  immediate  answers  to  calls  ;  and 
knows,  with  a  slight  turn  of  his  face,  and  elevation 
of  his  voice,  into  what  precise  corner  of  the  room  to 
pitch  his  "  Coming,  sir."  If  you  told  him,  that,  in 
Shakespeare's  time,  waiters  said,  "  Anon,  anon,  sir," 
he  would  be  astonished  at  the  repetition  of  the  same 
word  in  one  answer,  and  at  the  use  of  three  words 
instead  of  two ;  and  he  would  justly  infer,  that  Lon- 
don could  not  have  been  so  large,  nor  the  chop-houses 
so  busy,  in  those  days.  He  would  drop  one  of  the 
two  syllables  of  his  "  Yes,  sir,"  if  he  could  ;  but  busi- 
ness and  civility  will  not  allow  it :  and  therefore  he 
does  what  he  can  by  running  them  together  in  the 
"swift  sufficiency  of  his  "  Yezzir." 
.   "  Thomas  !  " 

"  Yezzir." 

"  Is  my  steak  coming?" 

"  Yezzir." 

"And  the  pint  of  port?" 

"Yezzir." 

"  You'll  not  forget  the  postman?  " 

"Yezzir." 
For,   in  the  habit  of  his  acquiescence,  Thomas  not 
seldom  says  "  Yes,  sir,"  for  "  No,  sir ; "  tlie  habit  it- 
self rendering  him  intelligible. 


178  THE    SEER. 

His  morning  dress  is  a  waistcoat  or  jacket :  his  coat 
is  for  afternoons.  If  the  establishment  is  flourishing, 
he  likes  to  get  into  black  as  he  grows  elderly :  by 
which  time  also  he  is  generally  a  little  corpulent,  and 
wears  hair-powder ;  dressing  somewhat  laxly  about 
the  waist,  for  convenience  of  movement.  Not,  how- 
ever, that  he  draws  much  upon  that  part  of  his  body, 
except  as  a  poise  to  what  he  carries  ;  for  you  may 
observe  that  a  waiter,  in  walking,  uses  only  his  low- 
est limbs,  from  his  knees  downwards.  The  move- 
ment of  all  the  rest  of  him  is  negative,  and  modified 
solely  by  what  he  bears  in  his  hands.  At  this  period 
he  has  a  little  inoney  in  the  funds,  and  his  nieces  look 
up  to  him.  He  still  carries,  however,  a  napkin 
under  his  arm,  as  well  as  a  corkscrew  in  his  pocket ; 
nor,  for  all  his  long  habit,  can  he  help  feeling  a  satis- 
faction at  the  noise  he  makes  in  drawing  a  cork.  He 
thinks  that  no  man  can  do  it  better ;  and  that  Mr. 
Smith,  who  understands  wine,  is  thinking  so  too, 
though  he  does  not  take  his  eyes  oft'  the  plate.  In  his 
right  waistcoat-pocket  is  a  snuff-box,  with  which  he 
supplies  gentlemen  late  at  night,  after  the  shops  are 
shut  up,  and  when  they  are  in  desperate  want  of 
another  fillip  to  their  sensations,  after  the  devil  and 
toasted  cheese.  If  particularly  required,  he  will 
laugh  at  a  joke,  especially  at  that  time  of  night ;  justly 
thinking  that  gentlemen  towards  one  in  the  morn- 
ing "  will  be  facetious."  He  is  of  opinion  it  is  in 
"human  nature"  to  be  a  little  fresh  at  that  period, 
and  to  want  to  be  jDut  into  a  coach. 

He  announces  his  acquisition  of  property  by  a 
bunch  of  seals  to  his  watch,  and  perhaps  rings  on  his 


THE    WAITER. 


179 


fingers,  —  one  of  them  a  mourning-ring  left  him  by 
his  Lite  master ;  the  other  a  present,  either  from  his 
nieces'  fother,  or  from  some  ultra-good-natured  old 
gentleman  whom  he  helped  into  a  coach  one  night, 
and  who  had  no  silver  about  him. 

To  see  him  dine,  somehow,  hardly  seems  natural ; 
and  he  appears  to  do  it  as  if  he  had  no  right.  You 
catch  him  at  his  dinner  in  a  corner,  —  huddled  apart, 
— '"Thomas  dining!"  instead  of  helping  dinner. 
One  fancies  that  the  stewed  and  hot  meats  and  the 
constant  smoke  ought  to  be  too  much  for  him,  and 
that  he  should  have  neither  appetite  nor  time  for  such 
a  meal. 

Once  a  year  (for  he  has  few  holidays),  a  couple  of 
pedestrians  meet  him  on  a  Sunday  in  the  fields,  and 
cannot  conceive  for  the  life  of  them  who  it  is  ;  till  the 
startling  recollection  occurs,  "  Good  God  !  —  it's  the 
waiter  at  the  Grogram  !  " 


i8o 


"THE    BUTCHER." 

Butchers    and  yurtes.  —  Butler's   Defence  of  the 
English  Dra?na^  (&c. 


T  was  observed  by  us  tlie  other  day  in  a  jour- 
nal, that  "butchei"s  are  wisely  forbidden  to 
be  upon  juries ;  not  because  they  are  not  as 
good  as  other  men  by  nature,  and  often  as  truly  kind ; 
but  because  the  habit  of  taking  away  the  lives  of  sheep 
and  oxen  inures  them  to  the  sight  of  blood  and  vio- 
lence and  mortal  pangs." 

The  "  Times,"  in  noticing  this  passage,  corrected 
our  error.  There  neither  is,  nor  ever  was,  it  seems, 
a  law  forbidding  butchers  to  be  upon  juries ;  though 
the  reverse  opinion  has  so  prevailed  among  all  classes, 
that  Locke  takes  it  for  granted,  in  his  "  Treatise  on 
Education  ;  "  and  our  own  authority  was  the  author  of 
"  Hudibras,"  a  man  of  very  exacft  and  universal  knowl- 
edge. The  passage  that  was  in  our  mind  is  in  his 
"  Posthumous  Works,"  and  is  worth  quoting  on  other 
accounts.  He  is  speaking  of  those  pedantic  and 
would-be  classical  critics  who  judge  the  poets  of  one 
nation  by  those  of  another.  Butler's  resistance  of  their 
pretensions  is  the  more  honorable  to  him,  inasmuch  as 
the  prejudices  of  his  own    education,   and   even   the 


"  THE    BUTCHER."  l8j 

propensity  of  his  genius,  lay  on  the  learned  and  anti- 
impulsive  side  ;  but  his  judgment  was  thorough-going 
and  candid.  The  style  is  of  the  off-hand,  careless 
order,  after  the  fashion  of  the  old  satires  and  epistles, 
though  not  so  rough  :  — 

"  An  English  poet  should  be  tried  by  his  peers, 
And  not  by  pedants  and  pliilosophers, 
Licompetent  to  judge  poetic  fury, 
As  butchers  are  forbid  to  be  of  a  jury; 
Besides  the  most  intolerable  wrong 
To  try  their  masters  in  a  foreign  tongue 
By  foreign  jurymen  like  Sophocles, 
Or  tales*  fiilser  than  Euripides ; 
When  not  an  English  native  dares  appear 
To  be  a  witness  for  the  prisoner ; 
When  all  the  laws  they  use  to  arraign  and  try 
The  innocent,  and  wronged  delinquent  by, 
Were  made  by  a  foreign  lawyer  and  his  pupils. 
To  put  an  end  to  all  poetic  scruples ; 
And,  by  the  advice  of  virtuosi  Tuscans, 
Determined  all  the  doubts  of  socks  and  buskins ; 
Gave  judgment  on  all  past  and  future  plays, 
As  is  appaient  by  Speroni's  case,t 
Which  Lope  Vega  first  began  to  steal, 


*  Tales  (Latin),  —  persons  chosen  to  supply  the  place  of  men  impan- 
elled upon  a  jury  or  inquest,  and  not  appearing  when  called.  [We 
copy  this  from  a  very  useful  and  pregnant  volume  called  the  "Treasury 
of  Knowledge,"  full  of  such  heaps  of  information  as  are  looked  for  in 
lists  and  vocabularies,  and  occupying  the  very  margins  with  proverbs. 
Mr.  Disraeli,  sen.,  objects  to  this  last  overflow  of  contents;  but  not,  we 
think,  with  his  usual  good  sense  and  gratitude,  as  a  lover  of  books. 
These  proverbial  sayings,  which  are  the  most  universal  things  in  the 
world,  appear  to  us  to  have  a  particularly  good  effect  in  thus  coming  in 
to  refresh  one  among  the  technicalities  of  knowledge.] 

t  Speroni,  a  celebrated  critic  in  the  days  of  Tasso. 


l82  THE    SEER. 

And  after  him  the  French  Jilou  *  Corneille ; 

And,  since,  our  EngHsh  plagiaries  nim 

And  steal  their  far-fetched  criticisms  from  him. 

And  by  an  action,  falsely  laid  of  trover,^ 

The  lumber  for  their  proper  goods  recover, 

Enough  to  furnish  all  the  lewd  impeachers 

Of  witty  Beaumont's  poetry  and  Fletcher's, 

Who  for  a  few  misprisions  of  wit, 

Are  charged  by  those  who  ten  times  worse  commit, 

And,  for  misjudging  some  unhappy  scenes, 

Are  censured  for  it  with  more  unlucky  sense; 

(How  happily  said  !) 

When  all  their  worst  miscarriages  delight 

And  please  more  than  the  best  that  pedants  write." 

Having  been  guilty  of  this  involuntary  scandal 
against  the  butchers,  we  would  fain  make  them 
amends  by  saying  nothing  but  good  of  them  and  their 
trade  ;  and,  truly,  if  we  find  the  latter  part  of  the  pro- 
position a  little  difficult,  they  themselves  are  for  the 
most  part  a  jovial,  good-humored  race,  and  can  afford 
the  trade  to  be  handled  as  sharply  as  their  beef  on  the 
block.  There  is  cut  and  come  again  in  them.  Your 
butcher  breathes  an  atmosphere  of  good  living.  The 
beef  mingles  kindly  with  his  animal  nature.  He 
grows  fat  with  the  best  of  it,  perhaps  with  inhaling 
its  very  essence  ;    and  has   no   time   to   grow  spare, 

*  Fihu,  —  "  pickpocket " !  This  irreverent  epithet  must  liave  startled 
many  of  Butler's  readers  and  brother-loyalists  of  the  court  of  Charles 
the  Second ;  but  he  suffered  nothing  to  stand  in  the  way  of  what  seemed 
to  him  a  just  opinion. 

t  Trover,  —  an  action  for  goods  found,  and  not  delivered  on  demand. 
—  Treasury  of  Knowledge.  Butler's  wit  dragged  every  species  of  infor- 
mation into  his  net. 


"  THE    BUTCHER."  1S3 

theoretical,    and    hypochondriacal,    like    those   whose 
more  thinking  stomachs  drive  them  upon  the  appa- 
rently   more    innocent    but    less    easy   and    analogous 
intercommunications  of  fruit  and  vegetables.     For  our 
parts,  like   all   persons  wlio   think   at  all,  —  nay,  like 
the   butcher   himself,  when   he   catches   himself  in  a 
strange  fit  of  meditation,   after  some    doctor  perhaps 
has  "  kept  him  low,"  —  we  confess  to  an  abstract  dis- 
like of  eating  the  sheep  and  lamb  that  we  see  in  the 
meadow ;    albeit  our  concrete   regard   for   mutton   is 
considerable,  particularly  Welsh  mutton.     But  Nature 
.has  a  beautiful  way  of  reconciling  all  necessities  that 
are    unmalignant ;    and   as  butchers   at   present   must 
exist,  and  sheep  and  lambs  would  not  exist  at  all  in 
civilized  countiies,  and  crop  the  sweet  grass  so  long, 
but  for  the  brief  pang  at  the  end  of  it,  he  is  as  com- 
fortable   a   fellow    as    can   be,  —  one    of  the    liveliest 
ministers  of  her  mortal   necessities,  —  of  the    deaths 
by  which  she  gives   and  diversifies  life  ;    and  has  no 
more  notion  of  doing  any  harm  in  his  vocation  than 
the  lamb  that  swallows  the  lady-bird  on  the  thyme. 
A  very  pretty  insert  is  she,  and  has  had  a  pretty  time 
of  it ;    a  very  calm,  clear  feeling,  healthy,  and  there- 
fore happy  little  woollen  giant,  compared  with  her, 
is  the  lamb,  —  her  butcher  ;    and  an  equally  innocent 
and  festive  personage  is  the  butcher  himself,  notwith- 
standing  the    popular    fixllacy    about  juries,    and    the 
salutary  misgiving  his  beholders  feel  when  they  see 
him  going  to  take  the  lamb  out  of  the  meadow,  or 
entering   the   more   tragical   doors    of  the   slaughter- 
house.    His  thoughts,  while  knocking  down  tlie  ox, 
are    of  skill    and    strength,   and    not  of  cruelty ;    and 


1S4  THE    SEER. 

the  death,  though  It  may  not  be  the  very  best  of  deaths, 
is,  assuredly,  none  of  the  worst.  Animals,  tliat  grow 
old  in  an  artificial  state,  would  have  a  hard  time  of  it 
in  a  lingering  decay.  Their  mode  of  life  would  not 
have  prepared  them  for  it.  Their  blood  would  not 
run  lively  enough  to  the  last.  We  doubt  even  whether 
the  John  Bull  of  the  herd,  when  about  to  be  killed, 
would  change  places  with  a  very  gouty,  irritable  old 
gentleman ;  or  be  willing  to  endure  a  grievous  being 
of  his  own  sort,  with  legs  answering  to  the  gout ; 
much  less  if  Cow  were  to  grow  old  with  him,  and 
plague  him  with  endless  lowings,  occasioned  by  the 
loss  of  her  beauty,  and  the  increasing  insipidity  of 
the  hay.  A  human  being  who  can  survive  those 
ulterior  vaccinations  must  indeed  possess  some  great 
reliefs  of  his  own,  and  desei^ve  them  ;  and  life  may 
reasonably  be  a  wonderfully  precious  thing  in  his 
eyes :  nor  shall  excuse  be  wanting  to  the  vaccinators, 
and  what  made  them  such,  especially  if  they  will  but 
grow  a  little  more  quiet  and  ruminating.  But  who 
would  have  the  death  of  some  old,  groaning,  aching, 
effeminate,  frightened  lingerer  in  life,  such  as  Mjecenas 
for  example,  compared  with  a  good,  jolly  knock-down 
blow,  at  a  reasonable  period,  whether  of  hatchet  or  of 
apoplexy,  —  whether  the  bull's  death  or  the  butcher's? 
Our  own  preference,  it  is  true,  is  for  neither.  We 
are  for  an  excellent,  healthy,  happy  life  of  the  very 
best  sort ;  and  a  death  to  match  it,  going  out  calmly 
as  a  summer's  evening.  Our  taste  is  not  particular ; 
but  we  are  for  the  knock-down  blow  rather  than  the 
death-in-life. 

The  butcher,  when  young,  is  famous  for  his  health, 


"  THE    BUTCHER."  1 85 

strength,  and  vivacity,  and  for  his  riding  any  kind  of 
horse  down  any  sort  of  hill,  witli  a  tray  before  him, 
the  reins  for  a  whip,  and  no  hat  on  his  head.  It  was 
a  gallant  of  this  sort  that  Robin  Hood  imitated,  when 
he  beguiled  the  poor  sheriff  into  the  forest,  and  showed 
him  his  own  deer  to  sell.  The  old  ballads  apostro- 
phize him  well  as  the  "  butcher  so  bold,"  or  better,  — 
with  the  accent  on  the  last  syllable,  —  "thou  bold 
butcher."  No  syllable  of  his  was  to  be  trifled  with. 
The  butcher  keeps  up  his  health  in  middle  life,  not 
only  with  the  food  that  seems  so  congenial  to  flesh, 
but  with  rising  early  in  the  morning,  and  going  to 
market  with  his  own  or  his  master's  cart.  When 
more  sedentary,  and  veiy  jovial  and  good-humored, 
he  is  apt  to  expand  into  a  most  analogous  state  of  fat 
and  smoothness,  with  silken  tones  and  a  short  bi-eath, 
—  harbingers,  we  fear,  of  asthma  and  gout ;  or  the 
kindly  apoplexy  comes,  and  treats  him  as  he  treated 
the  ox. 

When  rising  in  the  world,  he  is  indefatigable  on 
Saturday  nights ;  walking  about  in  the  front  of  those 
white-clothed  and  joint-abounding  open  shops,  while 
the  meat  is  being  half-cooked  beforehand  with  the 
gas-lights.  The  rapidity  of  his  "  What-d'ye-buy  ?  "  on 
tliese  occasions,  is  famous  ;  and  both  he  and  the  good 
housewives,  distraded  with  the  choice  before  them, 
pronounce  the  legs  of  veal  "  beautiful^  —  exceed- 
ingly." 

How  he  endures  the  meat  against  his  head  as  he 
carries  it  about  on  a  tray,  or  how  we  endure  that 
he  should  do  it,  or  how  he  can  handle  the  joints  as  he 
does   with    that   habitual    indifference,   or   with   what 

VOL.  I.  16 


1 86  THE   SEER. 

floods  of  hot  water  he  contrives  to  purify  himself  of 
the  exoterical  part  of  his  philosophy  on  going  to  bed, 
we  cannot  say ;  but,  take  him  all  in  all,  he  is  a  fine 
specimen  of  the  triumph  of  the  general  over  tlie  par- 
ticular. 

The  only  poet  that  was  the  son  of  a  butcher  (and 
the  trade  may  be  proud  of  him)  is  Akenside,  who 
naturally  resorted  to  the  "Pleasures  of  Imagination." 
As  to  Wolsey,  we  can  never  quite  pi6ture  him  to 
ourselves  apart  from  the  shop.  He  had  the  cardi- 
nal butcher' s-virtue  of  a  love  of  good  eating,  as  his 
pi6ture  shows ;  and  he  was  foreman  all  his  life  to  tlie 
butcher  Henry  the  Eighth.  We  beg  pardon  of  the 
trade  for  this  application  of  their  name ;  and  exhort 
them  to  cut  the  cardinal,  and  stick  to  the  poet. 


i87 


A  PINCH   OF  SNUFF. 


the  reader  take  a  pinch  of  snuff  with  us? 
Reader.     With  pleasure. 
Editor.     How  do  you  like  it? 

Reader.     Extremely  fine  !      I  never  saiv  such  snuff. 

Editor.  Precisely  so.  It  is  of  the  sort  they  call 
Invisible;  or,  as  the  French  have  it,  tabac  imagi- 
naire,  —  imaginaiy  snuff.  No  macuba  equals  it.  The 
tonquin  bean  has  a  coarse  flavor  in  comparison.  To 
my  thinking,  it  has  the  hue  of  Titian's  orange-color, 
and  the  very  tip  of  the  scent  of  sweet-brier. 

Reader.  In  fadl,  one  may  perceive  in  it  just  what 
one  pleases,  or  nothing  at  all. 

Editor.     Exactly  that. 

Reader.  Those  who  take  no  snuff  whatever,  or 
even  hate  it,  may  take  this,  and  be  satisfied.  Ladies, 
nay  brides,  may  take  it. 

Editor.  You  apprehend  the  delicacy  of  it  to  a 
nicet}\  You  will  allow,  nevertheless,  by  virtue  of 
the  same  fineness  of  perception,  that  even  when  you 
discern,  or  choose  to  discern,  neither  hue,  scent,  nor 
substance  in  it,  still  there  is  a  very  s.-nsible  pleasure 
realized  the  moment  the  pinch  is  oflered. 

Reader.  True,  the  good-will.,  —  that  which  is  pass- 
insT  between  us  two  now. 


iSS  THE    SEER. 

Editor.  You  have  it,  —  that  which  loosens  the 
tongues  of  people  in  omnibuses,  and  helps  to  thaw 
even  the  frozen-heartedness  of  diplomacy. 

Reader.  I  beg  your  pardon  for  a  moment ;  but 
is  t/iaw^  my  dear  sir,  the  best  word  you  could  have 
chosen?     Snuff  can  hai'dly  be   said  to  thaw. 

Editor.  {Aside.  This  it  is  to  set  readers  upon 
being  critical,  and  help  them  to  beat  their  teachers.) 
You  are  right  What  shall  we  say?  To  dissipate, — 
to  scatter,  —  to  make  evaporate  ?  To  blow  up  in  a 
sneeze? 

Reader.     I  will  leave  you  to  judge  of  that. 

Editor.  {Aside.  His  politeness  is  equal  to  his 
criticism.  Oh,  penny,  twopenny,  and  three-halfpenny 
"  trash  !  "  You  will  end  in  ruining  the  trade  of  your 
inventors !)  My  dear  reader,  1  wish  I  could  give  you 
snuff  made  of  the  finest  Brazil  in  a  box  of  diamond. 
But  good-will  is  the  flower  of  all  snuff-taking ;  and 
luckily  a  pinch  of  that  may  be  taken  equally  as  well 
out  of  horn,  or  of  invisible  wood,  as  of  the  gifts  of 
emperors.  This  is  the  point  I  was  going  to  speak  of. 
The  virtues  of  snuff  itself  may  be  doubted  ;  but  the 
benevolence  of  an  offered  pinch  and  the  gratitude  of 
an  accepted  one  are  such  good  things,  and  snuft-takers 
have  so  many  occasions  of  interchanging  these,  that 
it  is  a  question  whether  the  harm  of  the  self-indul- 
gence (if  any)  is  not  to  be  allowed  for  the  sake  of 
the  social  benefit. 

A  grave  question  !  Let  us  consider  it  a  little  with 
the  seriousness  becoming  snuff-takers,  real  or  imagi- 
nary. They  are  a  refledting  race :  no  men  know  bet- 
ter that  every  thing  is  not  a  trifle  which  appears  to  be 


A    PINCH    OF   SNUFF.  1 89 

such  in  uncleai-ed  eyes,  any  more  than  every  thing  is 
grand  which  is  of  serious  aspe6l  or  dimensions,  A 
snuff-taker  looks  up  at  some  mighty  error,  takes  his 
pinch,  and  shakes  the  imposture,  Hke  the  remnant 
of  the  pinch,  to  atoms,  with  one  "  flesh-quake "  of 
head,  thumb,  and  indifference.  He  also  looks  into 
some  little  nicety  of  question  or  of  creation,  —  of  tlie 
intelledtual  or  visible  world,  —  and  having  sharpened 
his  eyesight  with  another  pinch,  and  put  his  brain 
into  proper  cephalic  condition,  discerns  it,  as  it  were, 
microscopically,  and  pronounces  that  there  is  "  more 
in  it  than  the  tcn-snuff-taklng  would  suppose." 

We  agree  with  him.  The  mere  fancy  of  a  pinch 
of  snuff,  at  this  moment,  enables  us  to  look  upon 
divers  worlds  of  mistake  in  the  history  of  man  but 
as  so  many  bubbles,  breaking,  or  about  to  break ; 
while  the  pipe  out  of  which  they  were  blown  assumes 
all  its  real  superiority  in  the  hands  of  the  grown 
smoker,  —  the  superiority  of  peace  and  quiet  over 
war  and  childish  dispute.  An  atom  of  good-will  is 
worth  an  emperor's  snuff-box.  We  happened  once 
to  be  compelled  to  moot  a  point  of  no  very  friendly 
sort  with  a  stranger  whom  we  never  saw  before,  of 
whom  we.  knew  nothing,  and  whose  appearance  in 
the  matter  we  conceived  to  be  altogether  unwarrant- 
able. At  one  of  the  delicatcst  of  all  conjundures  in 
the  question,  and  when  he  presented  himself  in  his 
most  equivocal  light,  what  should  he  do,  but,  with  tlie 
best  air  in  the  world,  take  out  a  snuff-box,  and  offer 
us  the  philanthropy  of  a  pinch  ?  We  accepted  it  with 
as  grave  a  face  as  it  was  offered  ;  but,  secretly,  the 
appeal  was  irresistible.      It  was   as   much  as  to  say, 


190  THE    SEER. 

"  Qiiestions  may  be  mooted,  doubts  of  all  sorts  en- 
tertained,—  people  are  thrown  into  strange  situations 
in  this  world ;  but,  abstra6tedly,  what  is  any  thing 
worth  compared  with  a  quiet  moment,  and  a  resolution 
to  make  the  best  of  a  perplexity  ?  "  Ever  afterwards, 
whenever  the  thought  of  this  dispute  came  into  our 
recolle<5tion,  the  bland  idea  of  the  snuff-box  always 
closed  our  account  with  it ;  and  our  good-will  sur- 
vived, though  our  perplexity  remained  also. 

But  this  is  only  a  small  instance  of  what  must  have 
occurred  thousands  of  times  in  matters  of  dispute. 
Many  a  fierce  impulse  of  hostility  must  have  been  al- 
layed by  no  greater  a  movement.  Many  a  one  has 
been  caused  by  less !  A  few  years  ago,  a  petition 
was  presented  to  the  House  of  Commons  on  the  sub- 
jedl  of  duelling ;  by  which  it  appeared  that  people 
have  challenged  and  killed  one  another  for  words 
about  "  geese  "  and  "  anchovies "  and  "  a  glass  of 
wine."  Nay,  one  person  was  compelled  to  fight 
about  our  very  peace-maker,  "  a  pinch  of  snuff."  But, 
if  so  small  are  the  causes  of  deadly  offence,  how 
often  must  they  not  have  been  removed  by  the  judici- 
ous intervention  of  the  pinch  itself?  The  geese,  an- 
chovies, glass  of  wine,  and  all,  might  possibly  have 
been  made  harmless  by  a  dozen  grains  of  Havana. 
The  handful  of  dust  with  which  the  Latin  poet  settles 
his  wars  of  the  bees  was  the  type  of  the  pacifying 
magic  of  the  snuff-box  :  — 

"  ffi  motus  animoriun,  atque  haec  certamina  tanta, 
Pulveris  exigui  jactu  compressa  quiescent." 

"  These  movements  of  high  minds,  these  mortal  foes, 
Give  but  a  pinch  of  dust,  and  you  compose." 


A    PINCH   OF   SNUFF.  TQI 

Yet  snuff-taking   is    an    odd    custom.     If  we    came 
suddenly  upon  it  in  a  foreign  country,  it  would  make 
us  split  our  sides  wrth  laughter.     A  grave  gentleman 
takes  a  little  casket  out  of  his  pocket,  puts  a  finger 
and  thumb  in,  brings  away  a  pinch  of  a  sort  of  pow- 
der, and  then,  with  the  most  serious  air  possible,  as 
if  he  was  doing  one  of  the   most  important   actions 
of  his  life   (for  even  with  the  most  indifferent  snuff- 
takers  there  is  a  certain  look  of  importance),  proceeds 
to    thrust   and   keep    thrusting   it   at    his    nose !    after 
which  he   shakes  his  head,  or  his  waistcoat,  or  his 
nose  itself,  or  all  three,  in  the  style  of  a  man  who  has 
done  his  duty,  and  satisfied  the   most  serious  claims 
of  his  well-being.     What  should  we  say  to  this  cus- 
tom among  (he  inhabitants  of  a  newly  discovered  is- 
land ?     And  to  provoke  tlie  poor  nose  in  tliis  manner  ! 
and  call  people's  attention  to  it !     A  late  physician, 
whom  we  had  the  pleasure  of  knowing,  and  who  had 
a  restless  temperament,  used  to  amuse  us,  as  he  sat 
pondering  in  his  chair,  with  taking  up  a  pair  of  scis- 
sors, and  delicately  poking  the  tip  of  his  tongue  with 
it ;    thus  taking  delight  in  the  borders  of  an  uneasy 
sensation,   for   want   of   a   better.       We    have    often 
thought,  that   a   snuff-taker,  fond  of  a   potent   snuff, 
might  as  well   addi6t  himself  to  the  dodor's  scissors, 
or  pun6lure  any  other  part  of  his  face  with  a  fork  at 
once.      Elegant  fork-takers  might  have  boxes  with 
little  instruments  made  accordingly,  and  politely  offer 
them  to  the  company  to  poke  their  cheeks  with  ;   or 
they  might  hover  about  the  eyes,  or  occasionally  prac- 
tise some  slight  scarification.     Bleeding  is  accounted 
cephalic. 


192  THE    SEER. 

It  is  curious  to  see  the  various  modes  in  which 
people  take  snuff.  Some  do  it  by  little  fits  and  starts, 
and  get  over  the  thing  quickly.  These  are  epigram- 
matic snuff-takers,  who  come  to  the  point  as  fast  as 
possible,  and  to  whom  the  pungency  is  every  thing. 
They  generally  use  a  sharp  and  severe  snuff,  — a  sort 
of  essence  of  pins'  points.  Others  are  all  urbanity 
and  polished  demeanor :  they  value  the  style  as  much 
as  the  sensation,  and  offer  the  box  around  them  as 
much  out  of  dignity  as  benevolence.  Some  take  snuff 
irritably,  others  bashfully,  others  in  a  manner  as  dry 
as  the  snuff  itself,  generally  with  an  economy  of  the 
vegetable  ;  others  with  a  luxuriance  of  gesture,  and 
a  lavishness  of  supply,  that  announces  a  moister  ar- 
ticle, and  sheds  its  superfluous  honors  over  neckcloth 
and  coat.  Dr.  Johnson's  was  probably  a  snuff  of  this 
kind.  He  used  to  take  it  out  of  his  waistcoat-pocket 
instead  of  a  box.  There  is  a  species  of  long-armed 
snufi-taker,  that  performs  the  operation  in  a  style  of 
potent  and  elaborate  preparation,  ending  with  a  sud- 
den a6tivity.  But  smaller  and  rounder  men  some- 
times attempt  it.  He  first  puts  his  head  on  one  side  ; 
then  stretches  forth  the  arm,  with  pinch  in  hand  ;  then 
brings  round  his  hand  as  a  snuff-taking  elephant  might 
his  trunk ;  and,  finally,  shakes  snuff,  head,  and  nose 
together,  in  a  sudden  vehemence  of  convulsion.  His 
eyebrows  all  the  while  are  lifted  up,  as  if  to  inake  the 
more  room  for  the  onset ;  and,  when  he  has  ended,  he 
draws  himself  back  to  his  perpendicular,  and  gene- 
rally proclaims  the  victory  he  has  won  over  the  insi- 
pidity of  the  previous  moment,  by  a  sniff  and  a  great 
"  Hah  !  " 


193 


A    PINCH    OF    SNUFF. 

CONCLUDED. 

ROM  the  respect  which  we  showed  in  our 
last  to  scented  snufis,  and  from  other  indica- 
tions which  will  doubtless  have  escaped  us 
in  our  ignorance  of  his  art,  the  scientific  snuff-taker 
will  have  concluded  that  we  are  no  brother  of  tlie  box. 
And  he  will  be  right.  But  we  hope  we  only  give  the 
greater  proof  thereby  of  the  toleration  that  is  in  us, 
and  our  wish  not  to  think  ill  of  a  pra6lice  merely  be- 
cause it  is  not  our  own.  We  confess  we  are  inclined 
to  a  charitable  regard,  nay,  provided  it  be  hand- 
somely and  cleanly  managed,  to  a  certain  respedl,  for 
snuff-Liking,  out  of  divers  considerations :  first,  as  al- 
ready noticed,  because  it  helps  to  promote  good-will ; 
second,  because  we  have  known  some  very  worthy 
snuff-takers  ;  third,  out  of  our  regard  for  tlie  snufl-tak- 
ing  times  of  Queen  Anne,  and  the  wits  of  France  ; 
and  last,  because  in  the  benevolence  and  imaginative- 
ness and  exceeding  width  of  our  philosophy  (which 
fine  terms  we  apply  to  it  in  order  to  give  a  hint  to 
those  who  might  consider  it  a  weakness  and  supei- 
stition), — because  we  have  a  certain  veneration  for 
all  great  events  and  prevailing  customs,  that  have 
given  a  character  to  the  history  of  society'  in  the  course 
of  ages.  It  would  be  hard  to  get  us  to  think  con- 
temptuously of  the   mummies  of  Eg}-pt,  of  the  cere- 

VOL.   I.  17 


194  "^ME    SEER. 

momousness  of  the  Chinese,  of  the  betel-nut  of  the 
Turks  and  Persians,  nay,  of  the  garlic  of  the  south 
of  Europe  ;  and  so  of  the  tea-drinking,  cofiee-drink- 
ing,  tobacco-smoking,  and  snuft-taking  which  have 
come  to  us  from  the  Eastern  and  American  nations. 
We  know  not  what  great  providential  uses  there 
might  be  in  such  customs,  or  what  worse  or  more  friv- 
olous things  they  prevent,  till  the  time  comes  for  dis- 
placing them.  "  The  wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth  ;  " 
and  so,  for  aught  we  know,  doth  the  "cloud"  of  the 
tobacco-pipe.  We  are  resolved,  for  our  parts,  not  to 
laugh  with  the  "  scorner,"  but  even  to  make  merry 
with  submission  ;  nay,  to  imdermine  (when  we  feel 
compelled  to  do  so)  with  absolute  tenderness  to  the 
thing  dilapidated.  Let  the  unphilosophic  lover  of 
tobacco  (if  there  be  such  a  person),  to  use  a  phrase 
of  his  own,  "  put  that  in  his  pipe,  and  smoke  it." 

But  there  is  one  thing  that  puzzles  us  in  the  history 
of  the  Indian  weed  and  its  pulverization  ;  and  that  is, 
how  lovers  and  ladies  ever  came  to  take  snuft'.  In 
England,  perhaps,  it  was  never  much  done  by  the 
latter,  till  they  grew  too  old  to  be  "  particular,"  or 
thought  themselves  too  sure  of  their  lovers  ;  but  in 
France,  where  the  animal  spirits  think  less  of  obstacles 
in  the  way  of  inclination,  and  where  the  resolution 
to  please  and  be  pleased  is,  or  was,  of  a  fancy  less 
nice  and  more  accommodating,  we  are  not  aware  that 
the  ladies  in  the  time  of  the  Voltaires  and  Du  Chate- 
lets  ever  thought  themselves  either  too  old  to  love,  or 
too  young  to  take  snufF.  We  confess,  whether  it  is 
from  the  pun(5lilios  of  a  colder  imagination  or  the 
perils  incidental  to  a  warmer  one,  that,  although  we 


A   PINCH    OF    SNUFF.  I95 

are  interested  in  comprehending  the  former  privilege, 
we  never  could  do  the  same  with  the  latter.  A  bride- 
groom in  one  of  the  periodical  essayists,  describing 
his  wife's  fondness  for  rouge  and  carmine,  complains 
that  he  can  never  niake  pure,  unsophisticated  way  to 
her  cheek,  but  is  obliged,  like  Pyramus  in  the  story, 
to  kiss  through  a  wall,  —  to  salute  through  a  crust  of 
paint  and  washes  :  — 

"  Wall,  vile  wall,  which  did  those  lovers  sunder." 

This  is  bad  enough  ;  and,  considering  perhaps  a  due 
healthiness  of  skin,  worse :  yet  the  objedl  of  paint  is 
to  imitate  health  and  loveliness  ;  the  wish  to  look  well 
is  in  it.  But  snuff!  —  turtle-doves  don't  take  snuff. 
A  kiss  is  surely  not  a  thing  to  be  "  sneezed  at." 

Fancy  two  lovers  in  the  time  of  Qiieen  Anne,  oi 
Louis  the  Fifteenth,  each  with  snuff-box  in  hand,  who 
have  just  come  to  an  explanation,  and  who,  in  the 
hurry  of  their  spirits,  have  unthinkingly  taken  a  pinch, 
just  at  the  instant  when  the  gentleman  is  going  to 
salute  the  lips  of  his  mistress  !  He  does  so,  finds  his 
honest  love  as  frankly  returned,  and  is  in  the  a(5l  of 
bringing  out  the  words,  "  Charming  creature  !  "  when 
a  sneeze  overtakes  him  !  — 

"  Cha  -  Clia  -  Cha  -  Charming  creature  !  " 

What  a  situation  !  A  sneeze  !  O  Venus  !  where  is 
such  a  thing  in  thy  list? 

The  lady,  on  her  side,  is  under  the  like  malapropos 
influence,  and  is  obliged  to  divide  one  of  the  sweetest 
of  all  bashful  and  loving  speeches  with  the  shock  of 
the  sneeze  respondent : — 


196  THE    SEER. 

"  O  Richard  !    Sho  -  Sho  -  Sho  -  Should  you 
think  ill  of  me  for  this  ! " 

Imagine  it. 

We  have  nothing  to  say  against  tlie  sneeze  abstradl. 
In  all  nations  it  seems  to  have  been  counted  of  gi^eat 
significance,  and  worth  respeAful  attention,  whether 
advising  us  of  good  or  ill.  Hence  the  "  God  bless 
you  !  "  still  heard  among  us  when  people  sneeze  ;  and 
the  "  Felicita  !  "  ("  Good  luck  to  you  !  ")  of  the  Itali- 
ans. A  Latin  poet,  in  one  of  his  most  charming  effu- 
sions, though  not,  we  conceive,  witli  the  delicacy  of  a 
Greek,  even  makes  Cupid  sneeze  at  sight  of  tlie 
happiness  of  tw^o  lovei^s  :  — 

"  Hoc  ut  dixit,  Amor,  sinistram  ut  ante, 

Dextram  stemuit  approbationem." 

Catullus. 
"  Love,  at  tliis  charming  speech  and  sight. 

Sneezed  his  sanction  fi-om  the  right." 

But  he  does  not  make  tlie  lovefs  sneeze.  That  omen 
remained  for  the  lovers  of  the  snuff-box, — people  more 
social  than  nice. 

We  have  no  recolle6lion  of  any  self-misgiving  in 
this  matter,  on  the  part  of  the  male  sex,  dui-ing  the 
times  we  speak  of.  They  are  a  race  who  have  ever 
thought  themselves  warranted  in  taking  liberties 
which  they  do  not  allow  their  gentler  friends  ;  and  we 
cannot  call  to  mind  any  passage  in  the  writings  of  the 
French  or  English  wits  in  former  days,  implying  the 
least  distrust  of  his  own  right  and  propriety  and 
charmingness,  in  taking  snuff,  on  the  part  of  the 
gentleman  in  love.  The  "  beaux,"  marquisses,  men 
of  fashion.  Sir  Harry  Wildairs,  &c.,  all   talk  of  and 


A   PINCH   OF  SNUFF.  1 97 

use  and  pique  themselves  on  their  snuff-boxes,  with- 
out the  slightest  suspicion  that  there  is  any  thing  in 
them  to  which  courtship  and  elegance  can  objedl ;  antl 
we  suppose  this  is  the  case  still,  where  the  snuff-taker, 
though  young  in  age,  is  old  in  habit.  Yet  we  should 
doubt,  were  we  in  his  place.  He  cannot  be  certain 
how  many  women  may  have  refused  his  addresses  on 
that  single  account ;  nor,  if  he  marries,  to  what  secret 
sources  of  objection  it  may  give  rise.  To  be  clean  is 
one  of  the  first  duties  at  all  times ;  to  be  the  reverse, 
or  to  risk  it,  in  the  least  avoidable  respect,  is  perilous 
in  the  eyes  of  that  passion,  which,  of  all  others,  is  at 
once  the  most  lavish  and  the  most  nice,  —  which 
makes  the  greatest  allowance  for  all  that  belongs  to  it, 
and  tlie  least  for  whatever  is  cold  or  foreign,  or 
implies  a  coarse  security.  A  very  loving  nature, 
however,  may  have  some  one  unlovely  habit,  which  a 
wise  party  on  either  side  may  corre6t,  if  it  have  any 
address.  The  only  passage  which  we  remember 
meeting  with  in  a  book,  in  which  this  license  assumed 
by  the  male  sex  is  touched  upon,  is  in  a  pleasant 
comedy  translated  from  the  French  some  years  ago, 
and  brought  upon  the  stage  in  London,  —  the  "  Green 
Man."  Mr.  Jones,  we  believe,  was  the  translator. 
He  also  enadled  the  part  of  the  lover  ;  and  very  pleas- 
antly he  did  it.  It  was  one  of  his  best  performances. 
Luckily  for  our  present  purpose,  he  had  a  very  sweet 
assistant  in  the  person  of  Miss  Blanchard,  a  young 
a6lress  of  that  day,  who,  after  charming  the  town  with 
the  sprightly  delicacy  of  her  style,  and  with  a  face 
better  than  handsome,  prematurely  quitted  it,  to  their 
great  regret,  though,  we  believe,  for  tlie  best  of  all 


198  THE    SEER. 

reasons.  In  the  course  of  her  lover's  addresses,  this 
lady  had  to  find  fault  with  his  habit  of  snuff-taking ; 
and  she  did  it  with  a  face  full  of  such  loving  and  flat- 
tering reasons,  and  in  a  voice  also  so  truly  accordant 
with  the  words  which  the  author  had  put  into  her 
mouth,  that  we  remeinber  thinking  how  natural  it 
was  for  the  gentleman  to  give  up  the  point  as  he  did, 
instantly,  and  to  pitch  the  cause  of  offence  away  from 
him,  with  the  exclamation,  "  Ma  tabatiere,  adieu  ! " 
("  Farewell,  snuff-box ! ")  Thus  the  French,  who 
were  the  greatest  sinners  in  this  matter,  appear,  as 
they  ought,  to  have  been  the  first  reformers  of  it,  and 
openly  to  have  protested  against  the  union  of  love  and 
snuff-taking  in  either  sex. 

We  merely  give  this  as  a  hint  to  certain  snuff-takers 
at  a  particular  time  of  life.  We  are  loath  to  interfere 
with  others,  till  we  can  find  a  substitute  for  the  excite- 
ment and  occupation  which  the  snuff-box  affords  ;  fear- 
ing that  we  should  steal  from  some  their  very  powers 
of  refledlion ;  from  some  their  good  temper  or  pa- 
tience or  only  consolation  ;  from  others  their  helps  to 
wit  and  good  fellowship.  Whenever  Gibbon  was 
going  to  say  a  good  thing,  it  was  observed  that  he 
announced  it  by  a  complacent  tap  on  his  snuff-box. 
Life  might  have  been  a  gloomier  thing,  even  than  it 
was,  to  Dr.  Johnson,  if  he  had  not  enlivened  his  views 
of  it  with  the  occasional  stimulus  of  a  pinch.  Napo- 
leon, in  his  flight  from  Moscow,  was  observed  one 
day,  after  pulling  a  log  on  to  a  fire,  impatiently  seek- 
ing for  his  last  chance  of  a  consoling  thought ;  and  he 
found  it  in  the  corner  of  his  snuff-box.  It  was  his  last 
pinch  ;   and  most  imperatively  he  joinched  it !  digging 


A   PINXH    OF   SNUFF.  1 99 

it,  and  fetching  it  out  from  its  intrenchment.     Besides, 
we  have  a  regard  for  snuif-shops   and   tlieir  j^i'oprie- 
tors ;    and  never  pass  Pontet's  or  Killpack's  or  Tur- 
ner's  w^ithout   wishing    well    to    the    companionable 
people  that  frequent  them,  and  thinking  of  the  most 
agreeable  periods  of  English  and  French  wit.     You 
might  almost  as  soon  divorce  the  idea  of  the  Popes, 
Steeles,  and  Voltaires,  from  their  wigs  and  caps,  as 
from    their    snulf-boxes.     Lady   Mary   Wortley    took 
snuft';   Madame  du  Bocage  also,  no  doubt;   we  fear 
even  the  charming  Countess  of  Suffolk,  and  my  Lady 
Hai"vey.     Steele,  in  the  charadler  of  Bickerstaff,  speak- 
ing of  his  half-sister.  Miss  Jenny  Distaff,  who  was  a 
blue-stocking  and  about  to  be  married,  thinks  it  desira- 
ble that  she  should  not  continue  to  have  a  nose  "  all 
over  snuff"  in  future.     He  seems,  in  consideration  of 
her  books,  willing  to  compromise  with   a  reasonable 
beginning.     Ladies   are  greatly   improved  in   this  re- 
spe6t.     No  blue-stockings  now-a-days,  we  suspedl,  take 
snuff,  that  have  any  pretensions  to  youth  or  bcautv. 
They   rather   choose    to    realize    the    visions    of  their 
books,  and  vindicate  the  united  claims  of  mind   and 
person.     Sure  of  their  pretensions,  they  even  disclaim 
any  pretence,   except  that  of  wearing  stockings   like 
other  people  ;  to  prove  which,  like  proper  unaffected 
women,  they  give  into  the  fashion  of  short  petticoats, 
philosophically  risking  the  chance  of  drawing  inferior 
eyes  from  the  charms  of  their  talk  to  those  of  their 
feet  and  ankles. 

In  the  batde  of  the  "Rape  of  the  Lock,"  Pope 
makes  his  heroine,  Belinda,  conquer  one  of  her  gallant 
enemies  by  chucking  a  pinch  of  snuff  in  his  face  ;  nor 


200  THE    SEER. 

does  he  tell  us  that  she  borrowed  it.  Are  we  to  con- 
clude that  even  she,  the  pattern  of  youthful  beauty, 
took  it  out  of  her  own  pocket? 

"  But  this  bold  lord,  with  manly  strength  endued, 
She  with  one  finger  and  a  thumb  subdued ; 
Just  where  the  breath  of  lite  his  nostrils  drew, 
A  charge  of  snuff  the  wily  virgin  threw  ; 
The  Gnomes  direct,  to  every  atom  just, 
The  pimgent  grains  of  titillating  dust ;  " 

[A  capital  line  !] 

"  Sudden  with  starting  tears  each  eye  o'erflows, 
And  the  high  dome  re-echoes  to  his  nose." 

This  mode  of  warfare  is  now  confined  to  the  shop- 
lifters. No  modern  poet  would  tliink  of  making  his 
heroine  throw  snuff  at  a  man. 

An  Italian  wit  has  written  a  poem  on  Tobacco  (La 
Tabaccheide),  in  which,  with  the  daring  animal  spirits 
of  his  countrymen,  he  has  ventured  upon  describing  a 
sneeze.  We  shall  be  bolder  than  he,  considering  the 
less  enthusiastic  noses  of  the  North,  and  venture  to  give 
a  free  version  of  the  passage  :  — 

"  Ma  mi  sento  tutto  mordere 
E  dentro  e  fuori 
II  meato  degU  odori, 
E  la  piramide 
Einocerontica ; 
E  via  piu  crescere 
Quella  prinigine, 
Che  non  mai  sazia, 
Va  stuzzicandomi, 
"Va  rimordendomi, 
E  inuggiolendomi, 
E  va  gridandomi 


A    PINCH    OF    SNUFF.  20I 

Fiuta,  fiuta,  annasa,  annasa 

Questa  poca,  ch'6  rimasa.  — 

Chi  m'ajuta?  su,  finiamola, 

Che  non  6  giJl  questa  elloboro, 

Ma  divina  quhitessenza, 

Che  da  Bacco  ha  dipendenza, 

Donatrice  d'  allegrl 

D' allegrl  .  .  .  grl  —  gri — allegrl  .  .  . 

(Lo  starnuto  mel  rapia), 

Donatrice  d'  allegria." 

There  is  more  of  it ;  but  we  cannot  stand  sneezing  all 
night.      (We  write  this  towards  bedtime). 

"  What  a  moment !    What  a  doubt !  — 
All  my  nose,  inside  and  out, 
All  my  thrilling,  tickling,  caustic 
Pyramid  rhinocerostic, 
Wants  to  sneeze,  and  cannot  do  it ! 
Now  it  yearns  me,  thrUls  me,  stings  me ; 
Now  with  rapturous  torment  wrings  me  ; 
Now  says,  '  Sneeze,  you  fool !  get  through  it.' 
What  shall  help  me  —  Oh,  good  Heaven ! 
Ah  —  yes,  thank  ye  —  Tliirty-seven  — 
Shee  —  shee — Oh,  'tis  most  del-wAj 
Ishi  —  ishi  —  most  Ae\-ishi: 
(Hang  it !     I  shall  sneeze  till  spring :) 
Suuif 's  a  most  delicious  thing." 

Sneezing,  however,  is  not  a  high  snufT-taking  evidence. 
It  shows  the  author  to  have  been  raw  to  the  science, 
and  to  have  written  more  like  a  poet  than  a  professor. 
As  snutT-taking  is  a  practice  inclining  to  reflection, 
and  therefore,  to  a  philosophical  consideration  of  the 
various  events  of  this  life,  grave  as  well  as  gay,  we 
shall  conclude  the  present  article  with  the  only  tragi- 
cal story  we  ever  met  with  in  connexion  witli  a  snull- 


203  THE    SEER, 

box.     We  found  it  in   a  very  agreeable  book,  —  "A 
Week  on  the  Loire." 

"  The  younger  Cathelineau,  devoted  with  hereditary 
zeal  to  the  worn-out  cause  of  the  Bourbons,  took  up 
arms  for  Madame  la  Duchesse  de  Berri ;  associated  in 
his  successes  with  M.  de  Suriac,  M.  Morriset,  and  M. 
de  la  Soremere  ;  names  dear  in  the  annals  of  fidelity 
and  courage.  Orders  were  given  to  arrest  them  at 
Beaupreau  :  they  took  refuge  in  a  chateau  in  the 
neighborhood.  The  troops  surrounded  and  searched 
it,  but  all  in  vain :  not  a  single  human  being  was 
found  in  it.  Certain,  however,  that  the  objects  of  their 
search  were  a6lually  within  the  precin6ls  of  the  cha- 
teau, they  closed  the  gates,  set  their  watch,  and  al- 
lowed no  one  to  enter,  except  a  peasant  whom  they 
employed  to  show  the  hiding-places.  This  watch 
they  kept  three  days,  till  wearied  by  the  non-appear- 
ance of  the  parties,  and  the  bellowing  of  the  cattle, 
who  were  confined  without  water  and  on  short  allow- 
ance, they  were  on  the  point  of  quitting  the  spot.  One 
of  the  officers,  however,  thought,  previous  to  doing  so, 
he  would  go  over  the  chateau  once  more ;  the  peas- 
ant followed  close  at  his  heels :  suddenl}^  the  officer 
turned  towards  him, '  Give  me  a  pinch  of  snuff",  friend,* 
said  he. 

"  '  I  have  none,'  replied  the  man,  '  I  do  not  take  it.' 
"  '  Then  who  is  there  in  this  chateau  that  does?' 
"  '   No  one  that  I  know  of:    there  is  no  one  in  the 
chateau,  as  you  see.' 

"  '  Then  whence  comes  the  snuff" which  I  see  here?* 
said  the  officer,  pointing  with  his  foot  to  some  which 
was  scattered  on  the  ground. 


A    PINCH    OF   SNUFF.  203 

"  The  mill  turned  pale,  and  made  no  reply.  The 
officer  looked  round  again,  examined  the  earth  more 
closely,  stamped  with  his  foot,  and  at  last  tJiought  he 
felt  a  vibration,  as  if  the  ground  below  were  hollow. 
He  scrutinized  every  inch,  and  at  length  saw  some- 
thing like  a  loose  board :  he  raised  it  up,  and  then, 
alas !  he  beheld  Cathelineau,  in  front  of  his  three 
companions,  with  his  pistols  in  his  hand  ready  to  fire. 
The  officer  had  not  a  moment  to  deliberate.  He 
fired :  Cathelineau  fell  clead,  and  his  companions  were 
seized.  This  story  was  told  us  by  the  keeper  of 
the  JMusee,  and  afterwards  confirmed  by  an  officer 
who  was  one  of  the  party  employed." 

We  almost  regret  to  have  closed  a  light  article  with 
"  so  heavy  a  stone"  as  this.  ("  To  tell  him  that  he 
shall  be  annihilated,"  saith  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  "  is 
the  heaviest  stone  that  melancholy  can  throw  at  a 
man.")  But  the  snufl-taker,  with  his  magic  box  in 
hand,  is  prepared  for  chances.  As  the  Turk  takes  to 
his  pipe,  and  the  sailor  to  his  roll  of  tobacco,  so  he 
to  his  pinch  ;  and  he  is  then  prepared  for  whatsoever 
comes,  —  for  a  melancholy  face  with  the  melancholy, 
or  a  laugh  with  the  gay. 

Another  pinch,  reader,  before  we  part. 


204 


WORDSWORTH  AND  MILTON. 


T  is  allowed  on  all  hands,  now,  that  there 
are  no  sonnets  in  any  language  comparable 
with  Wordsworth's.  Even  Milton  must 
yield  the  palm.  He  has  written  but  about  a  dozen 
or  so,  —  Wordsworth  some  hundreds:  and  though  no- 
thing can  surpass  '  the  inspired  grandeur  of  that  on 
the  Piedmontese  Massacre,  the  tenderness  of  those  on 
his  Blindness  and  on  his  Deceased  Wife,  the  gi*ave 
dignity  of  that  to  a  Young  Lady,  or  the  cheerful  and 
Attic  grace  of  those  to  Lawrence  and  Cyriac  Skinner,' 
as  is  finely  said  by  the  writer  of  an  article  in  the 
'Edinburgh  Review'  on  Glassford's  '  Lyrical  Transla- 
tions,' yet  many  of  Wordsworth's  equal  even  these  ; 
and  the  long  and  splendid  array  of  his  sonnets  — 
deploying  before  us  in  series  after  series  —  astonishes 
us  by  the  proof  it  affords  of  the  inexhaustible  riches  of 
his  imaginative  genius  and  his  moral  wisdom.  One 
series  on  the  river  Duddon,  two  series  dedicated  to 
Liberty,  three  series  on  our  Ecclesiastical  History, 
miscellaneous  sonnets  in  multitudes,  and  those  last 
poured  forth  as  clear  and  bright  and  strong  as  the 
first  that  issued  from  the  sacred  spring ! "  —  Black- 
wood's Magazine. 

Most  true  is  this.     Wordsworth's   untired   exuber- 


WORDSWORTH   AND    MLLTON.  205 


ance  is  indeed  astonishing ;  though  it  becomes  a  little 
less  so  when  we  consider  that  his  genius  has  been 
fortunate  in  a  long  life  of  leisure,  his  opinions  not 
having  rendered  it  necessary  to  him  to  fight  with 
difficulties,  and  daily  cares,  and  hostile  ascendencies, 
as  Milton's  did,  — 

"  Exposed  to  daily  fraud,  contempt,  and  wrong, 
With  darkness  and  with  dangers  compassed  romid." 

In  that  condition  sate  the  great  blind  epic  poet ;  and, 
after  having  performed  an  a6tive  as  well  as  contem- 
plative part  for  his  earthly  sojourn,  still  combined 
action  with  contemplation  in  a  mighty  narrative,  and 
built  the  adamantine  gates  of  another  world.  In  no 
invidious  regard  for  one  great  poet  against  another 
do  we  say  it,  but  in  justice  to  fame  itself,  and  in  the 
sincerest  reverence  of  admiration  for  both.  With  the 
exception  of  Shakespeare  (who  included  everybody), 
Wordsworth  has  proved  himself  the  greatest  contem- 
plative poet  this  country  has  produced.  His  facility'  is 
wonderful.  He  never  wants  the  fittest  words  for  the 
finest  thoughts.  He  can  express  at  will  those  innu- 
merable shades  of  feeling  which  most  other  writers, 
not  unworthy  too,  in  their  degree,  of  the  name  of 
poets,  either  dismiss  at  once  as  inexpressible,  or  find 
so  difficult  of  embodiment  as  to  be  content  with 
shaping  them  forth  but  seldom,  and  reposing  from 
their  labors.  And  rhyme,  instead  of  a  hinderance, 
appears  to  be  a  positive  help.  It  serves  to  concentrate 
his  thoughts,  and  make  them  closer  and  more  precious. 
Milton  did  not  pour  forth  sonnets  in  this  manner, — 
poems  in  hundreds  of  little  channels,  —  all  solid  and 


2o6  THE    SEER. 

fluent  gold.  No  ;  but  he  was  venting  himself,  instead, 
in  "  Paradise  Lost."  "  Paradise  Lost,"  if  the  two 
poets  are  to  be  compared,  is  the  set-oft'  against  Words- 
worth's achievement  in  sonnet-writing.  There  is  the 
"Excursion,"  to  be  sure;  but  the  "Excursion"  is 
made  up  of  the  same  purely  contemplative  matter. 
It  is  a  long  -  drawn  song  of  the  nightingale,  as  the 
sonnets  are  its  briefer  warbles.  There  is  no  eagle- 
flight  in  the  "  Excursion  ;  "  no  sustainment  of  a  mighty 
a6lion  ;  no  enormous  hero,  bearing  on  his  wings  the 
weight  of  a  lost  eternity,  and  holding  on,  nevertheless, 
undismayed,  —  firm-visaged  through  faltering  chaos, 
—  the  combatant  of  all  chance  and  all  power,  —  a 
vision,  that,  if  he  could  be  seen  now,  would  be  seen  in 
the  sky  like  a  comet,  remaining,  though  speeding,  — 
visible  for  long  nights,  though  rapidly  voyaging,  —  a 
sight  for  a  universe,  —  an  adtor  on  the  stage  of  infinity. 
There  is  no  such  robust  and  majestic  work  as  this  in 
Wordsworth.  Compared  with  Milton,  he  is  but  as  a 
dreamer  on  the  grass,  though  a  divine  one ;  and 
worthy  to  be  compared  as  a  younger,  a  more  fluent- 
speeched,  but  less  potent  brother,  whose  business  it  is 
to  talk  and  think,  and  gather  together  his  flocks  of 
sonnets  like  sheep  (beauteous  as  clouds  in  heaven)  ; 
while  the  other  is  abroad,  more  a6tively  moving  in 
the  world,  with  contemplations  that  take  the  shape 
of  events.  There  are  many  points  of  resemblance 
between  Wordsworth  and  Milton.  They  are  both 
serious  men  ;  both  in  earnest ;  both  maintainers  of  the 
dignity  of  poetry  in  life  and  do6lrine ;  and  both  are 
liable  to  some  objedions  on  the  score  of  se6larianism, 
and  narrow  theological  views.     But  Milton  widened 


WORDSWORTH    AND    MILTOX.  207 

these  as  he  grew  old  ;  and  Wordsworth,  assisted  by 
the  advancing  light  of  the  times  (for  the  greatest 
minds  are  seldom  as  great  as  the  whole  instinctive 
mind  of  society),  cannot  help  conceding  or  qualifying 
certain  views  of  his  own,  though  timidly,  and  with 
fear  of  a  certain  few,  such  as  Milton  never  feared. 
Milton,  however,  was  never  weak  in  his  creed,  what- 
ever it  was :  he  forced  it  into  width  enough  to 
embrace  all  jolace  and  time,  future  as  well  as  present. 
Wordsworth  would  fain  dwindle  down  the  possibilities 
of  heaven  and  earth  within  the  views  of  a  Church-of- 
England  establishment.  And  he  is  almost  entirely  a 
retrospective  poet.  The  vast  future  frightens  him ; 
and  he  would  fain  believe  that  it  is  to  exist  only  in  a 
past  shape,  and  that  shape  something  very  like  one  of 
the  smallest  of  the  present,  with  a  vestry  for  the 
golden  church  of  the  New  Jei-usalem,  and  beadles  for 
the  "  limitary  cherubs."  Now,  we  hope  and  believe 
that  the  very  best  of  the  past  will  merge  into  the 
future  :  how  long  before  it  be  superseded  b}^  a  still 
better,  we  cannot  say.  And  we  own  that  we  can 
conceive  of  nothing  better  than  some  things  which 
already  exist,  in  venerable  as  well  as  lovely  shapes. 
But  how  shall  we  pretend  to  limit  the  vast  flood  of 
coming  events,  or  have  such  little  fiiith  in  nahire, 
providence,  and  the  enlightened  co-operation  of  hu- 
manity, as  to  suppose  that  it  will  not  adjust  itself  in 
the  noblest  and  best  manner?  In  this  respeCl,  and  in 
some  others,  Mr.  Wordsworth's  poetry  wants  uni- 
versality. He  calls  upon  us  to  sympathize  with  his 
churches,  and  his  country  flowers,  and  his  blisses  of 
solitude  ;   and  he  calls  well :   but  he  wants  one  of  the 


2oS 


THE    SEER. 


best  parts  of  persuasion ;  he  is  not  reciprocal ;  he 
does  not  sufficiently  sympathize  with  our  towns  and 
our  blisses  of  society,  and  our  reformations  of  churches 
(the  consequences,  after  all,  of  his  own.  What  would 
he  not  have  said,  by  the  by,  in  behalf  of  Popery,  had 
he  lived  before  a  Reformation  ?)  And  it  may  be  said 
of  him,  as  Johnson  said  of  Milton's  "  Allegi'o "  and 
"  Penseroso,"  that  "  no  mirth  indeed  can  be  found  in 
his  melancholy  ;  "  but  it  is  to  be  feared  there  is  always 
"  some  melancholy  in  his  mirth."  His  Muse  invites 
us  to  the  treasures  of  his  retirement  in  beautiful,  noble, 
and  inexhaustible  language :  but  she  does  it,  after  all, 
rather  like  a  teacher  than  a  persuader ;  and  fails  in 
impressing  upon  us  the  last  and  best  argiunent,  that 
she  herself  is  happy.  Happy  she  must  be,  it  is  tine, 
in  many  senses :  for  she  is  happy  in  the  sense  of 
power  ;  happy  in  the  sense  of  a  good  intention  ;  happy 
in  fame,  in  words,  in  the  consciousness  of  immortal 
poetry :  yet  there  she  is,  after  all,  not  quite  persuasive, 
—  more  rich  in  the  means  than  in  the  ends, — with 
something  of  a  puritan  austerity  upon  her,  —  more 
stately  than  satisfactory,  —  wanting  in  animal  spirits, 
in  perfedl  and  hearty  sympathy  with  our  pleasures 
and  her  own.  A  vaporous  melancholy  hangs  over 
his  most  beautiful  landscapes.  He  seems  alwa3's  gird- 
ing himself  up  for  his  pilgrimage  of  jov,  rather  than 
enjoying  it ;  and  his  announcements  are  in  a  tone  too 
exemplary  and  didactic.  We  admire  him  ;  ^ve  vene- 
rate him  ;  w^e  would  fain  agree  with  him  :  but  we  feel 
something  wanting  on  his  own  part  towards  the  large- 
ness and  healthiness  of  other  men's  wider  experience  ; 
and  we  resent,  for  his  sake  as  well  as  ours,  that  he 


WORDSWORTH    AND    MILTON.  209 

should  insist  upon  squaring  all  which  is  to  come  in 
the  interminable  future  with  the  visions  that  bound  a 
college  cap.  We  feel  that  it  will  hurt  the  effect  of  his 
genius  with  posterity,  and  make  the  most  admiring  of 
his  readers,  in  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  lament 
over  his  narrowness.  In  short,  his  poetry  is  the  sunset 
to  the  English  Church,  —  beautiful  as  the  real  sunset 
"  with  evening  beam,"  gorgeous,  melancholy,  retro- 
spedlive,  giving  a  new  and  divine  light  to  the  lowliest 
flowers,  and  setting  the  pinnacles  of  the  churches 
golden  in  the  heavens.  Yet  nothing  but  a  sunset  and 
a  retrospection  it  is.  A  new  and  great  day  is  coming, 
—  diviner  still,  we  believe,  —  larger,  more  universal, 
more  equable,  showing  (manifestly)  the  heavens  more 
just,  and  making  mankind  more  truly  religious,  be- 
cause more  cheerful  and  grateful. 

The  editor  of  "Blackwood"  justly  prides  himself 
on  having  appreciated  this  noble  poet  from  the  first : 
but  it  is  a  pity,  we  think,  that  he  looks  back  in  anger 
upon  those  whose  literary  educations  were  less  for- 
tunate ;  who  had  been  brought  up  in  schools  of  a 
different  taste  ;  and  who  showed,  after  all,  a  natural 
strength  of  taste  singularly  honorable  to  them,  in  be- 
ing able  to  appreciate  real  poetry  at  last,  even  in 
quai-tcrs  to  which  the  editor  himself,  we  believe,  has 
never  yet  done  justice,  though  no  man  could  do  it  bet- 
ter. For  Wilson's  prose  (and  we  could  not  express 
our  admiration  of  it  more  highly)  might  stretch  forth 
its  thick  and  rich  territory  by  the  side  of  Keats's 
poetry,  like  a  land  of  congenial  exuberance,  — a  forest 
tempest-tossed  indeed,  compared  with  those  still  valleys 
and  enchanted  gardens,  but  set  in  the  same  identical 

VOL.  I.  18 


2IO  THE    SEER. 

region  of  the  remote,  the  luxuriant,  the  mythological ; 
governed  by    a    more  wilful  and   scornful    spirit,    but 
such  as  hates  only  from  an  inverted  principle  of  the 
loving,  impatient  of  want  of  sympathy,  and   incapa- 
ble, in  the  last  resort,  of  denying  the  beautiful  where- 
soever existing,  because  tliereby  it  would   deny  the 
divine  part  of  itself.     Why  should  Christopher  North 
revert  to  the  errors  of  his  critical  brethren  in  past 
times,  seeing  that  they  are  all  now  agreed,  and  that 
every  one   of  them  perhaps  has  something  to  forgive 
himself  in  his  old  judgments   (ourselves  assuredly  not 
excepted,  if  we  may  be  allowed   to   name   ourselves 
among  them)  ?     Men  got  angry  from  political  differ- 
ences, and  wei-e  not  in  a  temper  to  give  dispassionate 
poetical  judgments.     And  yet  Wordsworth  had  some 
of  his  greatest  praises  from  his  severest  political  op- 
ponents (Hazlitt,  for  instance)  ;  and  out  of  the  former 
Scotch  school  of  criticism,  which  was  a  French  one, 
or  that  of  Pope  and   Boileau,  came   the   first   hearty 
acknowledgment  of  the  merits  of  Keats,  for  whom  we 
were  delighted  the  other  day  to  find  that  an  enthu- 
siastic   admiration    is    retained   by   the    chief  of   that 
school  (Jeffrey),  whose  natural  taste  has  long  had  the 
rare  honor  of  triumphing  over  his   educational   one  ; 
and  who  ought,  we  think,  now  that  he  is  a  Lord  of 
Session,  to  follow  at  his  leisure  moments  the  exam- 
ple set  him  by  the  most  accomplished  of  all  national 
benches  of  judicature,  and  give  us  a  book  that  should 
beat,  nevertheless,  all  the  Kameses  and  Woodhouse- 
lees  before  him  :    as  it  assuredly  would. 


211 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER. 

No.  L 

]EOFFREY  CHAUCER  was  born  in  Lon- 
don,  in  the  year  132S,  apjoarently  of  a  gentle- 
man's family ;  and  was  bred  in  the  court  of 
Edward  the  Third.  He  married  a  sister  of  Catherine 
Swynford,  mistress,  and  afterwards  wife,  to  the  king's 
son,  John  of  Gaunt ;  and  was  employed  in  court-offices, 
and  in  a  mission  to  Italy,  where  he  is  supposed  to 
have  had  an  interview  with  Petrarch.  In  the  sub- 
sequent reign  he  fell  into  trouble,  owing  to  his  con- 
nedlion  with  John  of  Gaunfs  party  and  the  religious 
reformers  of  those  days :  upon  which  he  fled  to  the 
Continent,  but  returned  ;  and,  after  an  imprisonment 
of  three  years,  was  set  at  liberty,  on  condition  of  giv- 
ing up  the  designs  of  his  associates,  —  a  blot  on  the 
memory  of  this  great  poet,  and  apparently  otherwise 
amiable  and  excellent  man,  which  he  has  excused  as 
well  as  he  could  by  alleging  that  they  treated  him  ill, 
and  would  have  plundered  and  starved  him.  He 
died  in  the  year  1400,  and  was  buried  in  Westminster 
Abbey,  close  to  which  he  had  had  a  house  on  the  site 
where  Henry  the  Seventh's  Chapel  now  stands :  so 
that  the  reader,  in  going  along  the  pavement  there,  is 
walking  where  Chaucer  once  lived. 


212  THE    SEER. 

His  person,  in  advanced  life,  tended  to  corpulency ; 
and  he  had  a  habit  of  looking  down.  In  conversation 
he  was  modest,  and  of  few  words.  He  was  so  fond 
of  reading,  that  he  says  he  took  heed  of  nothing  in 
comparison,  and  would  sit  at  his  books  till  he  dimmed 
his  eyes.  The  only  thing  that  took  him  from  them 
was  a  walk  in  the  fields. 

Chaucer  (with  Spenser,  Shakespeare,  and  Milton)  is 
one  of  the  four  great  English  poets ;  and  it  is  with 
double  justice  that  he  is  called  the  Father  of  English 
Poetry ;  for,  as  Dante  did  with  Italian,  he  helped  to 
form  its  very  language.  Nay,  it  burst  into  luxuriance 
in  his  hands,  like  a  sudden  month  of  May.  Instead 
of  giving  you  the  idea  of  an  "  old  "  poet,  in  the  sense 
which  the  word  vulgarly  acquires,  there  is  no  one, 
upon  acquaintance,  who  seems  so  young,  consistently 
with  maturity  of  mind.  His  poetry  rises  in  the  land 
like  a  clear  morning,  in  which  you  see  every  thing 
with  a  rare  and  crystal  distinftness,  from  the  moun- 
tain to  the  minutest  flower ;  towns,  solitudes,  human 
beings ;  open  doors,  showing  you  the  interior  of 
cottages  and  of  palaces ;  fancies  in  the  clouds,  fairy- 
rings  in  the  grass ;  and  in  the  midst  of  all  sits  the 
mild  poet  alone,  his  eyes  on  the  ground,  yet  with  his 
heart  full  of  every  thing  round  him,  beating,  perhaps, 
with  the  bosoms  of  a  whole  city,  whose  multitudes 
are  sharing  his  thoughts  with  the  daisy.  His  nature 
is  the  greatest  poet's  nature,  omitting  nothing  in  its 
sympathy  (in  which  respe6t  he  is  nearer  to  Shakespeare 
than  either  of  their  two  illustrious  brethren)  ;  and  he 
combines  an  epic  power  of  grand,  comprehensive, 
and  primitive  imagery,  with  that  of  being  contented 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  213 

with  the  smallest  matter  of  fadl  near  him,  and  of 
luxuriating  in  pure  vague  animal  spirits,  like  a  dozer 
in  a  field.  His  gayety  is  equal  to  his  gravity,  and  his 
sincerity  to  both.  You  could  as  little  think  of  doubt- 
ing his  word  as  the  point  of  the  pen  that  wrote  it. 
It  cuts  as  clear  and  sharp  into  you  as  the  pen  on  the 
paper.  His  belief  in  the  good  and  beautiful  is  child- 
like ;  as  Shakespeare's  is  that  of  everlasting  and  manly 
youth.  Spenser's  and  Milton's  are  more  scholarly 
and  formal.  Chaucer  excels  in  pathos,  in  humor,  in 
satire,  character,  and  description.  His  graphic  faculty, 
and  healthy  sense  of  the  material,  strongly  ally  him 
to  the  painter ;  and  perhaps  a  better  idea  could  not 
be  given  of  his  universality  than  by  saying  that  he 
was  at  once  the  Italian  and  the  Flemish  painter  of  his 
time,  and  exhibited  the  pure  expression  of  Raphael, 
the  devotional  intensity  of  Domenechino,  the  color 
and  corporeal  fire  of  Titian,  the  manners  of  Hogarth, 
and  the  homely  domesticities  of  Ostade  and  Teniers ! 
His  faults  are  coarseness,  which  was  that  of  his  age  ; 
and,  in  some  of  his  poems,  tediousness,  which  is  to  be 
attributed  to  the  same  cause,  —  a  book  being  a  book 
in  those  days,  written  by  few  ;  and,  when  it  was  writ- 
ten, tempting  the  author  to  cram  into  it  every  thing 
that  he  had  learned,  in  default  of  there  being  any 
encyclopEedias.  That  tediousness  was  no  innate  fault 
of  the  poet's,  is  strikingly  manifest,  not  only  from  the 
nature  of  his  genius,  but  from  the  fad:  of  his  throw- 
ing it  aside  as  he  grew  older  and  more  confident,  and 
spoke  in  his  own  person.  The  "  Canterbury  Tales," 
his  last  and  greatest  work,  is  almost  entirely  free  from 
it,  except  where  he  gives  us  a  long  prose  discourse, 


214  THE    SEER. 

after  the  fashion  of  the  day ;  and  in  no  respedl  is  his 
"  Palamon  and  Arcite  "  more  remarkable  than  in  the 
exquisite  judgment  with  which  he  has  omitted  every 
thing  superfluous  in  his  prolix  oi-iginal,  "  The  Teseide," 
—  the  work  of  the  great  and  poetical-natured,  but  not 
great  poet,  Boccaccio  (for  Boccaccio's  heart  and  nature 
were  poems ;  but  he  could  not  develop  them  well  in 
verse). 

In  proceeding  to  give  specimens  from  the  works 
of  the  father  of  our  verse,  the  abundance  which  lies 
before  us  is  perplexing  ;  and,  in  order  to  do  any  thing 
like  justice,  we  are  constrained  to  be  unjust  to  his  con- 
text, and  to  be  more  piecemeal  than  is  desirable.  Our 
extra6ts  are  from  the  volumes  lately  given  to  the  world 
by  Mr.  Clarke,  entitled  the  "  Riches  of  Chaucer,"  in 
which  the  spelling  is  modernized,  and  the  old  pro- 
nunciation marked  with  accents,  so  as  to  show  the 
smoothness  of  the  versification.  That  Chaucer  is  not 
only  a  smooth,  but  a  powerful  and  various  versifier,  is 
among  the  wonders  of  his  advance  beyond  his  age  : 
but  it  is  still  doubtful  whether  his  prosody  was  alwa}s 
corre6t  in  the  modern  sense  ;  that  is  to  say,  whether 
all  his  lines  contain  the  regulated  number  of  sylla- 
bles, or  whether  he  does  not  sometimes  make  time 
stand  for  number ;  or,  in  other  words,  a  sti'ong  and 
hearty  emphasis  on  one  syllable  perform  the  part  of 
two,  as  in  the  verse,  which  will  be  met  with  below, 
about  the  monk  on  horseback ;  of  whom  he  says, 
that  — 

"  Men  might  his  bridle  hear 
GingUng  in  a  whistling  wind  as  clear, 
And  eke  as  loud,  as  doth  the  chapel-bell." 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER.  215 

SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCEr's   rORTRAIT-PAINTING   AND   HUMOR. 

(From  tlu  set  of  Characters  at  the  beginning  of  the  Canterbury  Tales.) 

THE  KNIGHT. 

And  evermore  he  had  a  sovereign  prise; 

And  tliough  tliat  he  was  worthy,  he  was  wise. 

And  of  his  port  as  meek  as  is  a  maid. 

He  never  yet  no  villany  ne  said, 

In  all  his  life,  unto  no  manner  wight : 

He  was  a  very  perfect  gentle  knight. 

THE  SQUIRE. 

I 

With  him  there  was  his  son,  a  young6  squikr, 

A  lover  and  a  lusty  bacheler. 

With  lockes  curled  as  they  were  laid  in  press ; 

Of  twenty  years  of  age  he  was,  I  guess  ; 

Of  his  stature  lie  was  of  even  length, 

And  wonderly  deliver,*  and  great  of  strength  : 

And  he  had  been  some  time  in  chevachie,t 

In  Flaunders,  in  Artois,  and  Picardie, 

And  borne  him  well,  as  of  so  little  space. 

In  hope  to  standen  in  his  lady's  grace. 

Embroidered  was  he,  as  it  were  a  mead 
All  full  of  fresh6  flowres  white  and  red  ; 
Singing  he  was  or  floytingj  all  the  day  ; 
He  was  as  fresh  as  is  the  month  of  May : 

•  ••••••• 

Courteous  he  was,  lowly  and  serviceable, 
And  carved  before  his  father  at  the  table. 

[Which  was  the    custom   for    sons    in    those    days. 
His  attendant  yeoman  is  painted  in  a  line.] 

THE  YEOMAN. 

A  nut-head  had  he  with  a  brown  visdge. 


*  Agile. 

t  Clievauchee  (French),  — military  service  on  horseback. 

J  Fluting. 


2l6  THE    SEER. 


THE  PRIORESS. 


There  was  also  a  nun,  a  prioress, 

That  of  her  smiling  was  full  simple  and  coy, 

Her  greatest  oath  n'as  but  by  "  Saint  Eloy ; " 

And  she  was  cleped  Madam  Eglantine. 

Fxill  well  she  sange  the  service  divine, 

Entuned  in  her  nose  full  sweetely : 

And  French  she  spake  full  fair  and  fetisly, 

After  the  school  of  Stratford  alt6  Bow  ; 

For  French  of  Paris  was  to  her  unknow : 

[A  touch  of  good  satire  that  might  tell  now  !] 

At  meate  she  was  well  ytaught  withal ; 
She  let  no  morsel  from  her  lippes  fall, 
Ne  wet  her  fingers  in  her  s nice  deep  : 
Well  could  she  carry  a  morsel,  and  well  keep. 

[These   are   the   elegances   which    it  was    thought 
necessary  to  teach  in  that  age.] 

But  for  to  speaken  of  her  conscience : 
She  was  so  charitable  and  so  piteous. 
She  would6  wi  ep  if  that  she  saw  a  mouse 
Caught  in  a  trap,  if  it  were  dead  or  bled. 
Of  smalle  hoimdes  had  she,  that  she  fed 
With  roasted  flesh  and  milk  and  wastel  bread ; 
But  sore  wept  she  if  one  of  them  were  dead, 
Or  if  men  smote  it  with  a  yard6  smart: 
And  all  was  conscience  and  tender  heaii. 

[What  a  charming  verse  is  that !] 

THE  MONK. 

A  monk  there  was,  a  fair  for  the  mastery ; 

An  out-rider,  that  loved  venery ;  * 

A  manly  man  to  been  an  abbot  able : 

Full  many  a  dainty  horse  had  he  in  stable ; 


*  Venery,  —  hunting. 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  21 7 

And,  when  he  rode,  men  might  his  bridle  hear 
Gingling  in  a  whistling  wind  as  clear, 
And  eke  as  loud,  as  doth  the  chapel-hell, 
There  as  this  lord  was  keeper  of  the  cell. 

The  rule  of  Saint  Maure  and  of  Saint  Bene't, 
Because  that  it  was  old,  and  somedeal  strait, 
This  ilk6  monk  let  olde  thinges  pace, 
And  held  after  the  newe  world  the  trace. 
He  gave  not  of  the  text  a  pulled  hen, 
That  saith  that  hunters  be  not  holy  men ; 
Kor  that  a  monk,  when  he  is  reckeless. 
Is  like  to  a  fish  that  is  waterless  ; 
This  is  to  say,  a  monk  out  of  his  cloister : 
This  ilke  text  held  lie  not  worth  an  oyster. 

His  head  was  bald,  and  shone  as  any  glass, 
And  eke  his  face,  as  it  had  been  anoint : 
He  was  a  lord  full  fat  and  in  good  point ; 
His  eyen  steep,  and  rolling  in  his  head, 
That  steam6d  as  a  furnace  of  a  lead ; 
His  booti-'s  supple,  his  horse  in  great  estate ; 
Now  certainly  he  was  a  fair  prelate. 

[Of  tlie  sly  and  accommodating  friar  we  are  told, 

that]  — 

Fidl  sweet6l'j  heard  he  confessidn. 

And  pleasant  was  his  absolution. 

This  was  a  couplet  that  used  to  delight  the  late  Mr. 
Hazlitt.  To  give  it  its  full  gusto,  it  should  be  read 
with  a  syllabical  precision,  after  the  fashion  of  Dominie 
Sampson. 

THE  BCHOLAK. 

Him  was  lever*  have  at  his  bed's  head 
Twenty  hookis,  clothid  in  black  or  red, 
Of  Aristotle  and  his  philosophy. 
Than  robes  rich,  or  fiddle  or  psaltry. 

*  Rather. 

VOL.    I.  19 


2l8  THE   SEER. 

But  all  be  that  he  was  a  philosopher. 

Yet  hadd6  he  but  little  gold  in  coffer, 

But  all  that  he  might  of  his  friendes  hent, 

On  book6s  and  on  learning  he  it  spent. 

And  busily  'gan  for  the  soulis  pray 

Of  them  that  gave  him  wherewith  to  scholay. 

Of  study  took  he  most6  cure  and  heed ; 

Not  a  word  spake  he  more  than  was  need ; 

And  that  was  said  in  form  and  reverence, 

And  short  and  quick,  and  full  of  high  sentence : 

Sounding  in  moral  virtue  was  his  speech, 

And  gladly  would  he  learn,  and  gladly  teach. 

A  noble  verse,  containing  all  the  zeal  and  single- 
heartedness  of  a  true  love  of  knowledge.  The  ac- 
count of — 

THE  SERGEANT  OF  THE  LAW 

contains  a  couplet,  which  will  do  for  time  everlasting 
to  describe  a  bustling  man  of  business.  If  Fielding 
had  read  Chaucer,  he  would  assuredly  have  applied 
it  to  his  Lawyer  Dowling,  who  "  wished  he  could  cut 
himself  into  twenty  pieces,"  he  had  so  much  to  do. 

No  where  so  busy  a  man  as  he  there  n'as,* 
And  tet  he  seemed  busier  than  he  was. 

the  sailor. 

A  shipman  was  there,  woned  far  by  west ; 
For  aught  I  wot,  he  was  of  Dartemouth : 
He  rode  upon  a  rouncy  as  he  couth, 

[He  rode  upon  a  hack-horse  as  well  as  he  could.] 

All  in  a  gown  of  falding  to  the  knee. 

A  dagger  hanging  by  a  lace  had  he 

About  his  neck  under  his  arm  adown  : 

The  bote  summer  had  made  his  hue  all  brown  : 

*  Pronounced  noz,  was  not. 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  219 

And  certainly  he  was  a  good  fellaw ; 

Full  many  a  draught  of  wine  he  hadde  draw 

From  Bourdeaux  ward,  while  that  the  chapmen  sleep  : 

Of  nice  conscience  took  he  no  keep. 

If  that  he  fought  and  had  the  higher  hand, 

By  water  he  sent  them  home  to  every  land. 

But  of  his  craft  to  reckon  well  his  tides. 

His  streames  and  liis  strandes  liim  besides ; 

His  harberow,  his  moon,  and  his  lodemanage, 

There  was  none  such  from  Hull  unto  Carthage. 

Hardy  he  was,  and  wise,  I  undertake  ; 

With  many  a  tempest  had  his  beard  been  shake  : 

He  knew  well  all  the  havens,  as  they  were 

From  Gotliland  to  the  Cape  de  Finistere  ; 

And  every  creek  in  Bretagne  and  in  Spain ; 

His  barge  ycleped  was  the  Magdalen. 

THE  PABISH  PRIEST. 

Wide  was  his  parish,  and  houses  far  asimder ; 
But  he  ne  left  naught,  for  no  rain  nor  thvmder, 
In  sickness  and  in  mischief,  to  visit 
The  farthest  in  liis  parish  much  and  lite. 


He  sette  not  his  benefice  to  Mre, 
And  let  Ids  sheep  accumbred  in  the  mire. 
And  ran  unto  London,  unto  Saint  Poule's, 
To  seeken  him  a  chantery  of  souls. 
Or  with  a  brotherhood  to  be  withold  ; 
But  dwelt  at  home,  and  kept6  well  his  fold, 
So  that  the  wolf  he  made  it  not  miscarry  ; 
He  was  a  shepherd,  and  no  mercenary ; 


He  waited  after  no  pomp  or  reverence, 
Ne  raak6d  him  no  spic6 1  consciJ'nce, 
But  Christ6s  love,  and  his  apostles  twelve 
He  taught,  but  first  he  followed  it  himself. 

How  admirably  well  expressed  is  spiced  conscience  t 
—  a  conscience  requiring  to  be  kept  easy  and  sweet 
with  drugs  and  luxurious  living. 


220 


SPECIMENS   OF  CHAUCER. 
No.  II. 


EVERAL  of  Chaucer's  best  poems  are  trans- 
lations from  the  Italian  and  French ;  but  of 
so  exquisite  a  kind,  so  improved  in  charac- 
ter, so  enlivened  w^ith  fresh  natural  touches,  and  freed 
from  comparative  superfluity  (in  some  instances, 
freed  from  all  superfluity),  that  they  justly  take  the 
rank  of  originals.  We  are  sorry  that  we  have  not 
tlie  poem  of  Boccaccio  by  us,  from  which  he  took  the 
"  Knight's  Tale,"  containing  the  passages  that  fol- 
low, in  order  that  we  might  prove  this  to  the  reader  : 
but  it  is  lucky  perhaps  in  other  respedts,  for  it  would 
have  led  us  beyond  our  limits  ;  and  all  that  we  profess, 
in  these  extradts,  is  to  give  just  so  many  passages  of 
an  author  as  shall  suffice  for  evidence  of  his  various 
characteristics.  We  take,  from  his  garden,  specimens 
of  the  flowers  for  which  he  is  eminent,  and  send  them 
before  the  public  as  in  a  horticultural  show.  To  see 
them  in  their  due  juxtaposition  and  abundance,  we 
must  refer  to  the  gardens  themselves ;  to  which  it  is, 
of  course,  one  of  our  objedls  to  tempt  the  beholder. 

PHYSICAL   LIFE   AND   MOVESfENT. 

A  young  knight  going  a-Mai/ing. 

Compare   the   saliency   and   freshness   and    natural 
language  of  the  following  description  of  Arcite  going 


SPECIMENS   OF    CHAUCER.  221 

a-Maying,  with  the  more  artificial  version  of  the  pas- 
sage in  Dryden.  Sir  Walter  Scott  says  of  it,  that  the 
modern  poet  must  yield  to  the  ancient,  in  spite  of 
"  tlie  beauty  of  his  versification."  But,  with  all  due 
respedl  to  Sir  Walter,  here  is  the  versification  itself, 
as  superior  in  its  impulsive  melody,  even  to  Dryden's, 
as  a  tlioroughly  unafledled  beauty  is  to  a  beauty  half 

spoilt. 

The  busy  lark,  the  messenger  of  day, 
Salueth  *  in  her  song  the  morrow  gray ; 
And  fiery  Phoebus  riseth  up  so  bright, 
That  all  the  orient  laugheth  of  the  sight, 
And  with  liis  streamds  drieth  in  the  greves  t 
The  silver  dropp^s  hanging  on  the  leaves : 
And  Arcite,  that  is  in  the  court  redl  % 
"With  Theseus,  the  squier  principal, 
Is  risen,  and  looketh  on  the  merry  day ; 
And  for  to  do  his  observance  to  May, 
Eemembring  on  tlie  point  of  his  desire, 
He  on  his  courser,  starting  as  thejire, 

[An  admirable  image  !  He  means  those  sudden  catches 
and  impulses  of  a  fiery  horse,  analogous  to  the  shifting 
starts  of  a  flame  in  action  ;] 

Is  ridden  to  the  field6s,  him  to  play. 
Out  of  the  coiurt,  were  it  a  mile  or  tway  ; 

[These  are  the  mixtures  of  the  particular  with  the 
general,  by  which  natural  poets  come  home  to  us ;] 

And  to  the  grove  of  which  that  I  you  told. 
By  dventure§  his  way  he  gan  to  hold. 
To  maken  him  a  garland  of  the  greves, 
Were  it  of  woodbind  or  of  hawthorn  leaves ; 


*  Saluteth.  t  Groves.  t  Koyal. 

§  Per  avenlura  (Italian),  —  by  chance. 


323  THE   SEER, 

And  loud  he  sang  against  the  sunny  sheen  :  * 
Mai/,  —  with  all  thy  flowers  and  thy  green, 
Right  welcome  be  thou,  fair6  freshe  May : 
/  hope  that  I  some  green  here  getten  may. 

["  I  hope  that  I  may  get  some  green  here,"  —  an  ex- 
pression a  little  more  off-hand  and  trusting,  and  fit 
for  the  season,  than  the  conventional  commonplaces 
of  the  passage  in  Dryden  :  — 
"  For  thee,  sweet  month,  the  groves  green  liveries  wear  !  "  &c.] 

PORTRAITS   OF   TWO   WARRIOR-KINGS. 

There  mayst  thou  see,  coming  with  Palamon, 
Licurge  himself,  the  greate  King  of  Thrace : 
Black  was  his  beard,  and  manly  was  his  face; 

[Here  was  Dryden's  and  Pope's  turn  of  line   antici- 
pated under  its  most  popular  form.] 

The  circles  of  his  eyen  in  his  head 
They  gloweden  betwixen  yellow  and  red  ; 
And  like  a  griffon  looked  he  about. 
With  combed  hair^s  on  his  browns  stout ; 

[That  is  to  say,  a  forehead  of  the  simplest,  potent  ap- 
pearance, with  no  pains  taken  to  set  it  out.] 

His  limbes  great,  his  brawnes  hard  and  strong. 
His  shoulders  broad,  his  arm6s  round  and  long ; 
And,  as  the  guis6  was  in  his  countree, 
Full  high  upon  a  car  of  gold  stood  he. 
With  foure  white  buUes  in  the  trace 
Instead  of  coat  armour  on  his  harnAce,t 
With  nailes  yellow,  and  bright  as  any  gold ; 
He  had  a  beare's  skin,  cole-black  for  old. 
His  longe  hair  was  combed  behind  his  back 
As  any  raven's  feather  it  shone  for  black  ; 

*  The  sunshine.  t  Harness. 


SPECIMENS    OF   CHAUCER.  223 

A  wreath  of  gold  arm-great,  of  hug6  weight, 
Upon  his  head  sate  full  of  stonfes  bright, 
Of  fine  rubies  and  of  diamonds. 
About  his  car  tliere  wenten  wliite  alauns  * 
Twenty  and  more,  as  great  as  any  steer, 
To  huntcn  at  the  lion  or  the  deer. 
And  followed  him,  with  muzzle  fast  ybound, 
Collared  with  gold,  and  tourettes  t  filed  round. 
A  hundred  lordes  had  he  in  his  rout. 
Armed  full  well  with  heartes  stern  and  stout. 
"With  Arcita,  in  stories  as  men  find. 
The  great  Emetrius,  the  King  of  Ind, 
Upon  a  steed6  bay,  trapped  in  steel, 
Covered  with  cloth  of  gold  diapred  wele. 
Came  riding  like  the  god  of  annis,  Mars  ; 

[There's  a  noble  line,  with  the  monosyllable  for  a 
climax  !] 

His  coat-armo6r  was  of  a  cloth  of  Tars  ; 
Couched  J  with  pearles  white  and  round  and  great ; 

His  crisp6  hair  hke  ring6s  was  y-run. 
And  that  was  yellow,  and  glittered  as  the  sun ; 
His  nose  was  high,  his  eyen  a  bright  citrine,  § 
His  lippes  round,  his  color  was  sanguine ; 
A  few  frackness  ||  in  his  face  ysprent,^ 
Betwixen  yellow  and  black  somdeal  yment ;  ** 
And  as  a  lion  he  his  looking  cast. 

[He  does  not  omit  the  general  impression,  notwith- 
standing all  these  particulars.  You  may  see  his  por- 
trait close  or  at  a  distance,  as  you  please.] 

*  Alano  (Spanish),  —  a  species  of  hound, 
t  Rings  on  the  collars  to  leash  by. 
X  Embedded. 

§  Citron-color.    It  seems  to  imply  wh.it  has  been  sometimes  called 
a  green-eye,  —  a  hazel  dashed  with  a  sort  of  sparkling  yellow. 
II  Freckles.  ^  Sprinkled.  •*  Mingled. 


224 


THE    SEER. 

Of  five-and-twenty  years  his  age  I  cast ;  * 
His  beard  was  well  beginning  for  to  spring ; 
His  voice  was  as  a  trumpet  thundering. 
•        •••••• 

A  hundred  lordes  had  he  with  him  there, 
All  arm6d  save  their  heads,  in  all  their  gear ; 
Full  richely  in  alle  manner  thingcs  ; 
For  trusteth  wellt  that  earles,  dukes,  kinges, 
Were  gathered  in  this  noble  company. 
For  love,  and  for  increase  of  chivalry. 
About  this  king  there  ran  on  every  part 
Full  many  a  tame  lion  and  leopart. 


*  Reckon.  — Chaucer,  like  the  Italians  and  French,  used  the  same 
word  for  a  rhyme,  provided  the  meaning  was  different. 

t  Believe  me.  The  third  person  singular  had  the  force,  in  those 
days,  of  the  imperative. 


225 


SPECIMENS  OF  CHAUCER. 

No.  m. 

His  Pathos. 

]HAUCER'S  pathos  is  true  nature's:  it  goes 
diredlly  to  its  object.  His  sympathy  is  not 
fashioned  and  clipped  by  modes  and  respedls  ; 
and  herein,  indeed,  he  was  kicky  in  the  comparatively 
homely  breeding  of  his  age,  and  in  the  dearth  of 
books.  His  feelings  were  not  rendered  critical  and 
timid.  Observe  the  second  line,  for  instance,  of  the 
following  verses.  The  glossaries  tell  us  that  the  word 
*■'•  swell"  means  yalfzled,  —  died.  There  may  be  a 
Saxon  word  with  such  a  meaning :  but,  luckily  for 
Nature  and  Chaucer,  there  is  another  Saxon  word, 
swell,  of  which  swell'd  is  the  past  tense  ;  and  most 
assuredly  this  is  the  word  here,  as  the  reader  will  feel 
instantly.  No  man,  however  much  in  love,  faints 
"  full  oft  a  day  :  "  but  he  may  swell,  as  the  poet  says  ; 
that  is  to  say,  heave  his  bosom  and  body  with  the 
venting  of  his  long-suspended  breath,  and  say,  "Alas  !" 
The  fainting  is  unnatural ;  the  sigh  and  the  heaving  is 
most  natural,  and  most  admirably  expressed  by  tliis 
homely  word.  We  have,  therefore,  spelt  it  according- 
ly, to  suit  the  rest  of  the  orthograpliy. 


236  THE  SEER. 


THE  UNHAPPY  LOVER. 

{From  the  KnighVs  Tale.) 

When  that  Arcite  to  Thebes  comen  was, 

Full  oft  a  day  he  sivell'd,  and  said,  "  Alas  I " 

For  see  his  lady  shall  he  never  mo.* 

And  shortly  to  concluden  all  his  woe. 

So  muckle  sorrow  had  never  creituxe 

That  is,  or  shall  he,  while  the  world  may  dm-e  : 

His  sleep,  his  meat,  his  drink,  is  him  beraft, 

That  lean  he  waxed,  and  dry  as  is  a  shaft ; 

His  eyen  hollow,  and  grisly  to  behold ; 

His  hue  sallow,  and  pale  as  ashes  cold ; 

And  solitary  he  was,  and  ever  alone. 

And  waiUng  all  the  night,  making  his  moan ; 

And  if  he  heardd  song  or  instrument, 

Then  would  he  weepe  ;  he  mighti  not  he  stent. 

That  is,  could  not  be  stopped  :  the  wilful,  washing, 
self-pitying  tears  would  flow.  This  touch  about  tlie 
music  is  exquisite. 

Dryden,  writing  for  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second, 
does  not  dare  to  let  Arcite  weep,  when  he  hears 
music.     He  restri6ls  him  to  a  gentlemanly  sigh :  — 

"  He  sighs  when  songs  or  instruments  he  hears." 

The  cold  ashes,  which  have  lost  their  fire  (we  have 
the  phrase  still  "  as  pale  as  ashes"),  he  turns  to  "  sap- 
less boxen  leaves  "  (a  classical  simile)  ;  and  far  be  it 
from  him  to  venture  to  say  "  swell."  No  gentleman 
ever  "  swell'd  ; "  certainly  not  with  sighing,  whatever 
he  might  have  done  with  drinking.  But,  instead  of 
that,  the  modern  poet  does  not  mind  indulging  him 

*  More.    "  Mo  "  is  still  to  be  found  in  the  old  version  of  the  Psalms. 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  227 

with  a  good  canting  commonplace,  in  the  style  of  the 
fustian  tiMgedies :  — 

"  He  raved  with  all  the  madness  of  despair ; 
He  raved,  he  beat  his  breast,  he  tore  his  hair." 

And  then  we  must  have  a  solid,  sensible  reason  for  the 
lover's  not  weeping :  — 

"  Dry  sorrow  in  his  stupid  eyes  appears  ; 
FoTy  wanting  nourishment,  he  wanted  tears  I " 

It  was  not  sufficient,  tliat,  upon  the  principle  of  ex- 
tremes meeting,  the  excess  of  sorrow  was  unable  to 
weep,  —  that  even  self-pity  seemed  wasted.  When 
the  fine  gentleman  of  the  court  of  Charles  the  Second, 
and  when  Charles  himself,  wept  (see  Pepys),  it  was 
when  they  gi-ew  maudlin  over  their  wine,  and  thought 
how  piteous  it  was  that  such  good  eaters  and  drinkers 
should  not  have  every  tiling  else  to  their  liking.  But 
let  us  not  run  the  risk  of  forgetting  the  merits  of 
Drj'den,  in  comparing  him  with  a  poet  so  much  the 
greater. 

THE   SAME    LOVEK   DTINO. 

Alas  the  woe  !  alas  the  paines  strong 
That  I  for  you  have  suffered,  and  so  long ! 
Alas  the  death  !  alas  mine  Emily  ! 
Alas,  departing  of  our  company  ! 
Alas  mine  heartus  queen !    Alas  my  wife  I 

"  Alas  !  "  it  is  to  be  observed,  was  the  common  expres- 
sion of  grief  in  those  days ;  and  all  these  repetitions 
of  it  only  show  the  loud,  wilful  self- commiseration, 
natural  to  dying  people  of  a  violent  turn  of  mind,  as 
this  lover  was.  But  he  was  also  truly  in  love,  and  a 
gentleman.     See  how  he  continues:  — 


228  THE    SEER. 

Mine  heartes  lady,  ender  of  my  life ! 
What  is  this  world?     What  ashen  men  to  have? 
Now  with  his  love,  now  in  his  cold  grave: 
Alone,  —  withouten  any  company. 

How  admirably  expressed  the  difference  between 
warm  social  life  and  the  cold  solitary  grave !  How 
piteous  the  tautology,  "Alone,  —  withouten  any  com- 
pany ! " 

Farewell,  my  sweet !  farewell,  mine  Emily ! 
And  soft,  —  take  me  in  your  armds  tway 
For  love  of  God,  and  hearken  what  I  say. 

He  has  had  an  unjust  quarrel  with  his  rival  and  once- 
beloved  friend,  Palamon :  — 

I  have  here,  with  my  cousin  Palamon, 

Had  strife  and  rancour  many  a  day  agone. 

For  love  of  you,  and  for  my  jealousy ; 

And  Jupiter  so  wis  my  soule  gie,* 

To  speken  of  a  servant  t  properly 

With  alle  circumstances  truely. 

That  is  to  say,  truth,  honom-,  and  knigthead. 

Wisdom,  humblcss,  estate,  and  high  kindred. 

Freedom,  and  all  that  longeth  to  that  art,  J 

So  Jupiter  have  of  my  soule  part. 

As  in  this  world  right  now  ne  know  I  none 

So  worthy  to  be  loved  as  Palamon, 

That  serveth  you,  and  will  do  all  his  life ; 

And,  if  that  ever  ye  shall  be  a  wife. 

Forget  not  Palamon,  the  gentle  man. 

SIMILE   OF   A   MAN    LED   TO   EXECUTION. 

(From  the  "  Man  of  Law's  Taie.") 

The  virtuous  Constance,  wrongfully  accused,   stands 
pale,  and  looking  about  her,  among  a  king's  courtiers. 

*  So  surely  guide  my  soul, 
t  A  lady's  servant  or  lover. 
J  The  art  of  ti-ulj'  serving. 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  229 

Have  ye  not  seen,  sometime,  a  pale  face 
(Among  a  press)  *  of  him  that  hath  been  led 
Towilrd  his  death,  where  as  lie  getteth  no  grace, 
And  such  a  colour  in  his  face  hath  had. 
They  mighten  know  him  that  was  so  bested 
Amougest  all  the  faces  in  that  rout  1 
So  staut  Custance,  and  looketh  her  about. 

THE   MOTHER  AND    CHILD   PUT   TO   THE   MERCY   OF   THE   OCEAN. 

The  same  Constance,  accused  by  the  king's  mother  of 
having  produced  him  a  monstrous  child,  is  treated  as 
above,  against  the  will  of  the  constable  of  the  realm, 
w^ho  is  forced  to  obey  his  master's  orders. 

Weepen  both  j'oung  and  old,  in  all  that  place. 
When  that  the  king  this  cursed  letter  sent, 
And  Custance,  ivith  a  deadly  pali  face 
The  fourth  day  towdrd  the  ship  she  went: 
But  nathcless  she  tak'th  in  good  intent 
The  will  of  Christ ;  and,  kneeling  on  the  strond, 
She  said,  "  Lord,  aye  welcome  be  thy  soiid.t 
He  that  me  kepti  from  the  fahi  blame 
Whiles  I  was  in  the  land  amongds  you, 
He  can  me  keep  from  harm,  and  eke  from  shame, 
In  the  salt  sea,  althoiujli  I  see  not  how. 
As  stronfi  as  ever  he  was,  he  is  yet  now. 
In  hira  trust  I,  and  in  his  mother  dear 
That  is  to  me  my  sail,  and  eke  my  steer." 
Her  little  child  lay  weeping  in  her  arm  ; 
And,  kneeling  piteotisly,  to  him  she  said, 
"  Peace,  little  son !  I  will  do  thee  no  harm." 
With  that,  her  kerchief  oflF  her  head  she  braid. 
And  over  his  little  eyen  she  it  laid. 
And  in  her  arm  she  lulleth  it  full  fast. 
And  into  the  heaven  her  eyen  up  she  cast. 


•  In  a  multitude.  f  Thy  sending,  —  the  lot  thou  sendest. 


230  THE   SEER. 

"  Mother  (quoth  she)  and  maiden  bright,  Mary ! 

Sooth  is,  that  thorough  womannes  eggment* 

Mankind  was  born,  and  damned  aye  to  die, 

For  which  thy  child  was  on  a  cross  yrent:  t 

Thy  blissful  eyen  saw  all  his  toniiint ; 

Then  is  there  no  comparison  between 

Thy  woe  and  any  woe  man  may  sustain. 

The  true  piteous  emphasis  on  the  words  of  this  line  is 
not  to  be  surpassed. 

Thou  saw'st  thy  child  yslain  before  thine  eyen, 
And  yet  now  liveth  my  little  child  parfay.  J 
Now,  Lady  bright !  to  whom  all  woeful  crien, 
Thou  glory  of  womanhood,  thou  faire  May ! 
Thou  haven  of  refuge,  bright  star  of  day. 
Rue  on  my  child,  that  of  thy  gentleness 
Ruest  on  every  rueful  in  distress. 

O  httle  child,  alas  !  what  is  thy  guilt. 
That  never  wroughtest  sin  as  yet,  pardie  ? 
Why  will  thine  hard  father  have  thee  spilt? 
O  mercy,  dear6  constable  (quoth  she), 
As  let  my  little  child  dwell  here  with  thee." 

The  silence  of  the  pitying  constable,  here  hurriedly- 
passed  over  by  poor  Constance,  as  if  she  would  not 
distress  him  by  pressing  him  for  what  he  could  not  do, 
is  a  specimen  of  those  eloquent  powers  of  omission 
for  which  great  masters  in  writing  are  famous.  Con- 
stance immediately  continues :  — 

"An'  if  thou  darest  not  saven  him  from  blame, 
So  kiss  him  ones  §  in  his  father's  name." 


*  Incitement.  f  Tom. 

X  By  my  faith.  §  Once. 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  23! 

Therewith  she  looketh  backward  to  the  land, 
Aud  said6,  "  Farewell,  husband  ruthless ! " 
And  up  she  rose,  and  walked  down  the  strand 
Toward  the  sliip  :  her  foUoweth  all  the  press  : 
And  ever  she  praijeth  her  child  to  fiold  his  peace, 
And  tak'th  her  leave. 

The  mixture  of  natural  kindliness,  bewildered  feeling, 
and  indelible  good-breeding,  in  this  perpetual  leave- 
taking,  is  excessively  affe6ling. 

And  with  a  holy  intent 
She  blesseth  her,  and  into  the  ship  she  went. 

Glorious,  sainted  Griselda  in  our  next. 


232 


SPECIMENS   OF  CHAUCER. 

No.  IV. 

Story  of  Grlselda. 

HE    famous    story    of    Griselda,    or    patient 
Grizel,  who  supposes  her  husband  to  kill  her 
children  and  to  dismiss  her  finally  from  his 
bed  under  circumstances  of  the  greatest  outrage,  and 
yet  behaves   meekly   under   all,  was   not   long   since 
the  most  popular  story  in  Europe,   and  still  deeply 
affedls  us.     Writers  have  asserted  that  there  actually 
was  some  such  person.     In  vain  has  the  husband  been 
pronounced  a  monster,  and  the  story  impossible.     In 
vain  have  critics  in  subsequent  time,  not  giving  suffi- 
cient  heed   to   the   difference   between   civilized    and 
feudal  ages,  or  to  the  beauties  with  which  the  narra- 
tive has  been  mingled,  declared  it  to  be  no  better  than 
the  sight  of  a  "  torment  on  the  rack."     The  story  has 
had  shoals  of  narrators,  particularly  in  old  France ; 
and  been  repeated  and  dwelt  upon  by  the  greatest  and 
tenderest  geniuses,  —  Boccaccio,  Petrarch,  and  Chau- 
cer.    The  whole  heail  of  Christendom  has  embraced 
the  heroine.     She  has  passed  into  a  proverb :    ladies 
of  quality  have   called   their   children   after  her,  the 
name  surviving  (we  believe)  among  them  to  this  day, 
in  spite  of  its  griesly  sound  ;  and  we  defy  the  manliest 
man,  of  any  feeling,  to  read  it  in  Chaucer's  ov^n  con- 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER,  233 

secutive  stanzas  (whatever  he  may  do  here)  without 
feeling  his  eyes  moisten. 

How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for?  The  husband  is 
perfectly  monsti'ous  and  unnatural,  —  there  can  be  no 
doubt  of  that,  —  he  pursues  his  trial  of  his  wife's 
patience  for  twelve  years,  and  she  is  supposed  to  love 
as  well  as  to  obey  him  all  the  time,  —  him,  the  mur- 
derer of  her  children !  This,  also,  is  unnatural,  — 
impossible.  A  year,  a  montli,  a  week,  would  have 
been  bad  enough.  The  lie  was  bad  in  itself.  And 
yet,  in  spite  of  that  utter  renouncement  of  the  fi6lion, 
to  which  civilization  finally  brings  us,  we  feel  for  the 
invincibly  obedient  creature  ;  we  are  deeply  interested  ; 
we  acknowledge  instinftively,  that  the  story  had  a 
right  to  its  fame;  nay  (not  to  speak  it  profanely), 
that,  like  other  permanent  and  popular  stories  of  a 
solemn  cast,  it  is  a  sort  of  revelation  in  its  way,  at 
once  startling  us  with  contrasts  of  good  and  evil,  and 
ending  in  filling  us  with  hope  and  exaltation.  How  is 
this? 

The  secret  is,  that  a  principle  —  the  sense  of  duty  — 
is  set  up  in  it  above  all  considerations  ;  that  the  duty 
once  believed  in  by  a  good  and  humble  nature  is 
exalted  by  it,  in  consequence  of  its  very  torments, 
above  all  torment  and  all  weakness.  We  are  not 
expedted  to  copy  it,  much  less  to  approve  or  be  blind 
to  the  hard-heartedness  that  fetches  it  out ;  but  the  , 
blow  is  struck  loudly  in  the  ears  of  mankind,  in  order 
that  they  may  think  of  duty  itself,  and  draw  their  own 
conclusions  in  favor  of  their  own  sense  of  it,  when  they 
see  what  marvellous  effe6l  it  can  have  even  in  its 
utmost  extravagance,  and  how  unable  we  are  to  help 
VOL.  I.  20 


234 


THE    SEER. 


respedling  it,  in  proportion  to  the  very  depth  of  its 
self-abasement.  We  feel  that  the  same  woman  could 
have  gone  through  any  trial  which  she  thought  becom- 
ing a  woman,  of  a  kind  such  as  we  should  all  admire 
in  the  wisest  and  justest  ages.  We  feel  even  her 
weakness  to  be  her  strength,  —  one  of  the  wonder- 
fullest  privileges  of  virtue. 

We  are  travelling,  at  present,  far  out  of  the  pro- 
posed design  of  these  specimens,  which  were  intended 
to  consist  of  little  more  tlian  extracts,  and  the  briefest 
possible  summary  of  the  author's  charadleristics.  But 
the  reader  will  pardon  an  occasional  yielding  to 
temptations  like  these.  Our  present  number  shall 
consist  of  as  brief  a  sketch  as  we  can  give  of  the  suc- 
cessive incidents  of  Chaucer's  story,  which  are  man- 
aged with  a  skill  exquisite  as  the  feeling ;  and,  when- 
ever we  come  to  an  irresistible  specimen,  it  shall  be 
extracted. 

At  Saluzzo  in  Piedmont,  under  the  Alps,  — 

"Down  at  the  root  of  Vesulus  the  cold,"  — 

there  reigned  a  feudal  lord,  a  marquis,  who  was  be- 
loved by  his  people,  but  too  much  given  to  his  amuse- 
ment, and  an  enemy  of  marriage ;  which  alarmed 
them,  lest  he  should  die  childless,  and  leave  his  in- 
heritance in  the  hands  of  strangers.  They,  therefore, 
at  last  sent  him  a  deputation  which  addressed  him  on 
the  subject ;  and  he  agreed  to  take  a  wife,  on  condition 
that  they  should  respect  his  choice  wheresoever  it 
might  fall. 

Now,  among  tlie  poorest  of  the  marquis's  peo- 
ple, — 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  235 

"  There  dwelt  a  man 
Which  that  was  holden  poorest  of  them  all : 
But  highe  God  sometim6  senden  can 
His  grace  unto  a  little  ox's  stall  ; 
Janicola,  men  of  that  thorp  him  call ; 
A  daughter  had  he  fair  enough  to  sight, 
And  Grisildis  tliis  young6  maiden  hight." 

Tender  of  age  was  "  Grisildis "  or  "Grisilda"  (for 
the  poet  calls  her  both)  ;  but  she  was  a  maiden  of  a 
thoughtful  and  steady  nature,  and  as  excellent  a  daugh- 
ter as  could  be,  thinking  of  nothing  but  her  sheep,  her 
si^inning,  and  her  "  old  poor  father,"  whom  she  sup- 
ported by  her  labor,  and  waited  upon  with  the  greatest 
duty  and  obedience. 

"  Upon  Griseld',  this  i)oor6  creature, 
Full  often  sitli  tliis  marquis  set  his  eye. 
As  he  on  hunting  rode  perdventure  ; 
And,  when  it  fell  that  he  might  her  espy. 
He  not  with  wanton  looking  of  folly 
His  eyen  cast  on  her,  but  in  sad  wise 
Upon  her  cheer  he  would  him  oft  avise." 

The  marquis  announced  to  his  people  that  he  had 
chosen  a  wife,  and  the  wedding-day  arrived :  but  no- 
body saw  the  lady  ;  at  which  there  was  great  wonder. 
Clothes  and  jewels  were  prepared,  and  tlie  feast  too  ; 
and  the  marquis,  with  a  great  retinue,  and  accompa- 
nied by  music,  took  his  way  to  the  village  where 
Griselda  lived. 

Griselda  had  heard  of  his  coming,  and  said  to  her- 
self, that  she  would  get  her  work  done  faster  than 
usual,  on  purpose  to  stand  at  the  door,  like  other 
maidens,  and  see  the  sight :  but,  just  as  she  was 
going  to  look  out,  she  heard  the  marquis  call  her ; 


236  TJIE   SEER. 

and  she  set  down  a  water-pot  she  had  in  her  hand, 
and  knelt  down  before  him  with  her  usual  steady 
countenance. 

The  marquis  asked  for  her  father ;  and,  going  in- 
doors to  him,  took  him  by  the  hand,  and  said,  with 
many  courteous  words  and  leave-asking,  that  he  had 
come  to  marry  his  daughter.  The  poor  man  turned 
red,  and  stood  abashed  and  quaking,  but  begged  his 
lord  to  do  as  seemed  good  to  him :  and  then  the  mar- 
quis asked  Griselda  if  she  would  have  him,  and  vow 
to  obey  him  in  all  things,  be  they  what  they  might ; 
and  she  answered  trembling,  but  in  like  manner ;  and 
he  led  her  forth,  and  presented  her  to  the  people  as  his 
wife. 

The  ladies,  now  Griselda's  attendants,  took  off  her 
old  peasant's  clothes,  not  much  pleased  to  handle 
them,  and  dressed  her  anew  in  fine  clothes,  so  that 
the  people  hardly  knew  her  again  for  her  beauty. 

"  Her  hair^s  have  they  combed  that  lay  unti-essed 
Full  rudely,  and  with  their  fingers  small 
A  coroune  on  her  head  they  have  ydress6d, 
And  set  her  full  of  nouches  *  great  and  small. 
Thus  Walter  lowly,  nay  hut  royally, 
Wedded  with  fortunate  honesty ; " 

and  Griselda  behaved  so  well  and  discreetly,  and 
behaved  so  kindly  to  every  one,  making  up  disputes, 
and  speaking  such  gentle  and  sensible  words, — 

"  And  could6  so  the  people's  heart  embrace, 
That  each  her  lov'th  that  looketh  on  her  face." 


*  JVoMcAes,-- nuts?  — buttons  in  that  shape  made  of  gold  or  jeweller^-. 


SPECIMENS    OF   CHAUCER.  237 

In  due  time  the  marchioness  had  a  daughter,  and 
the  marquis  had  always  treated  his  consort  well,  and 
behaved  like  a  man  of  sense  and  reflection :  but  now 
he  informed  her  that  his  people  were  dissatisfied  at  his 
having  raised  her  to  be  his  wife  ;  and,  reminding  her 
of  her  vow  to  obey  him  in  all  things,  told  her  that  she 
must  agree  to  let  him  do  with  the  little  child  whatso- 
ever he  pleased.  Griselda  kept  her  vow  to  the  letter, 
not  even  changing  countenance ;  and  shortly  after- 
wards an  ill-looking  fellow  came,  and  took  the  child 
from  her.  Intimating  that  he  was  to  kill  it.  Griselda 
asked  permission  to  kiss  her  child  ere  it  died ;  and  she 
took  it  in  her  bosom,  and  blessed  and  kissed  it  with  a 
sad  face,  and  prayed  the  man  to  bury  its  "  little  body" 
in  some  place  where  the  birds  and  beasts  could  not  get 
it.  But  the  man  said  nothing.  He  took  the  child, 
and  went  his  way  ;  and  the  marquis  bade  him  carry  it 
to  the  Countess  of  Pavia,  his  sister,  with  directions  to 
bring  it  up  in  secret. 

Griselda  lived  on,  behaving  like  an  excellent  wife ; 
and  four  years  afterwards  she  had  another  child,  a  son, 
which  the  marquis  demanded  of  her,  as  he  had  done 
the  daughter,  laying  his  injunctions  on  her  at  the  same 
time  to  be  patient.  Griselda  said  she  would  ;  adding, 
—  as  a  proof,  nevertheless,  what  bitter  feelings  she  had 
to  control,  — 

"  I  have  not  had  no  part  of  children  twain ; 
But  first,  sickness ;  and  after,  woe  and  pain." 

The  same  "  ugly  sergeant"  now  came  again,  and  took 
away  the  second  child,  carr}dng  it  like  the  former  to 
Bologna ;  and  twelve  years  after,  to  the  astonishment 


238  THE    SEER. 

and  itidignation  of  the  poet,  and  the  people  too,  but 
making  no  alteration  whatsoever  in  the  obedience  of 
the  wife,  the  marquis  informs  her,  that  his  subje(5ls 
are  dissatisfied  at  his  having  her  for  a  wife  at  all,  and 
that  he  had  got  a  dispensation  from  the  pope  to  marry 
another,  for  whom  she  must  make  way,  and  be  di- 
vorced, and  return  home  ;  adding,  insultingly,  that  she 
might  take  back  with  her  the  dowry  which  she 
brought  him.  Woefully,  but  ever  patiently,  does  Gris- 
elda  consent ;  not,  however,  witliout  a  tender  exclama- 
tion at  the  diflerence  between  her  marriage-day  and 
this :  and  as  she  receives  the  insti-u6lion  about  the 
dowry  as  a  hint  that  she  is  to  give  up  her  fine  clothes, 
and  resume  her  old  ones,  which  she  says  it  would  be 
impossible  to  find,  she  makes  him  the  following 
exquisite  prayer  and  remonstrance.  —  If  we  had  to 
write  for  only  a  certain  select  set  of  readers,  never 
should  we  think  of  bespeaking  their  due  reverence  for 
a  passage  like  the  following,  and  its  simple,  primitive, 
and  most  afle(5ling  thoughts  and  words.  But  a  publi- 
cation like  the  present  must  accommodate  itself  to  the 
chances  of  pei-usal  in  all  quarters,  either  by  alteration 
or  explanation ;  and  therefore,  in  not  altering  any  of 
these  words,  or  daring  to  gainsay  the  sacred  tender- 
ness they  bring  before  us,  we  must  observe,  that  as 
there  is  not  a  more  pathetic  passage  to  be  found  in 
the  whole  circle  of  human  writ,  so  the  pathos  and  the 
pure  words  go  inseparably  together ;  and  his  is  the 
most  refined  heart,  educated  or  uneducated,  that  re- 
ceives them  with  the  delicatest  and  profoundest  emo- 
tion. 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER.  239 

"  My  lord,  ye  wot  that  in  my  father's  place 
Ye  did  me  strip  out  of  my  pooi6  weed," 

[How  much,  by  the  way,  this  old  and  more  length- 
ened pronunciation  of  the  word  poor,  poore  (French, 
pauvre)^  adds  to  the  piteous  emphasis  of  it !] 

"  And  richt'ly  ye  clad  me  of  yonr  grace  : 
To  you  brought  I  nought  elles  out  of  drede,* 
But  faith  and  nakedness  and  '  womanhede ; ' 
And  here  again  your  clothing  I  restore. 
And  eke  your  wedding  ring,  for  evermore. 

The  remnant  of  your  jewels  ready  be 
Witliin  your  '  chamber,'  I  dare  safely  sain. 
Naked  out  of  my  father's  house  {quoth  she) 
I  came,  and  naked  I  must  turn  again." 

[How  beautifully  is  the  Bible  used  here  !] 

"  All  your  pleasanc6  would  I  follow  fain ; 
But  yet  I  hope  it  be  not  your  intent 
That  I  smockless  out  of  your  palace  went. 

Ye  could  not  do  so  dishonest  a  thinfj 
That  thilki  t  womb  in  which  your  children  lay, 
Shouidd  bi fore  the  people,  in  my  walking. 
Be  seen  all  bare :  wherefore,  I  you  pray. 
Let  me  not  like  a  worm  go  by  the  way. 
Bemember  you,  mine  owen  lord  so  dear, 
I  ivas  your  wife,  though  I  unworthy  were. 

"Wherefore  in  guerdon  of  my  '  womanhede,* 
"Which  that  I  brought  and  '  yet '  again  I  bear, 
As  vouchesafe  to  give  me  to  my  meed 
But  such  a  smock  as  I  was  wont  to  wear, 
That  I  therewith  may  wrie  J  the  womb  of  her 
That  teas  your  irlfe.    And  here  I  take  my  leave 
Of  you,  mine  oweii  lord,  lest  I  you  grieve." 


*  Out  of  drede, — without  doubt, 
t  Thi[ke,  —  thi3.  t  Wrie,  — cover. 


240  THE    SEER. 

"  '  The  smock/  quoth  he,  '  that  thou  hast  on  thy  back. 
Let  it  be  still,  and  bear  it  forth  with  thee.' 
But  well  unnethes  *  thilke  word  he  spake. 
But  went  his  way  for  ruth  and  for  pittie, 
Before  the  folk  herselven  strippeth  she, 
And  in  her  smock,  with  foot  and  head  aU  bare, 
Toward  her  father's  house,  forth  is  she  fare." 

The  people  follow  her  weeping  and  wailing ;  but 
she  went  ever  as  usual,  with  staid  eyes,  nor  all  the 
while  did  she  speak  a  word.  As  to  her  poor  father, 
he  cursed  the  day  he  was  born.  And  so  with  her 
father,  for  a  space,  dwelt  "  this  flower  of  wifely  pa- 
tience ; "  nor  showed  any  sense  of  oflence,  nor  remem- 
brance of  her  high  estate. 

At  length  arrives  news  of  the  coming  of  the  new 
marchioness,  with  such  array  of  pomp  as  had  never 
been  seen  in  all  Lombardy  ;  and  the  marquis,  who  has, 
in  the  mean  time,  sent  to  Bologna  for  his  son  and 
daughter,  once  more  desires  Griselda  to  come  to  him, 
and  tells  her  that  as  he  has  not  women  enough  in  his 
household  to  wait  upon  his  new  wife,  and  set  every 
thing  in  order  for  her,  he  must  request  her  to  do  it ; 
which  she  does  with  all  ready  obedience,  and  then 
goes  forth  with  the  rest  to  meet  the  new  lady.  At 
dinner,  the  marquis  again  calls  her,  and  asks  her 
what  she  thinks  of  his  choice.  She  commends  it 
heartily,  and  prays  God  to  give  him  prosperity ;  only 
adding,  that  she  hopes  he  will  not  try  the  nature  of  so 
young  a  creature  as  he  tried  hers,  since  she  has  been 
brought  up  more  tenderly^  and  perhaps  could  not 
bear  it. 

*  Unnethfis,  —  scarcely. 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER.  24I 

"  And  wl.en  this  Walter  saw  her  patience, 
Her  g.al.le  clieer,  and  no  malice  at  all, 
And  he  so  often  had  her  done  offence, 
And  she  aye  sad*  and  constant  as  a  wall. 
Continuing  aye  her  innocence  over  all. 
This  stiu'dy  marquis  'gan  his  heartc  dress 
To  rue  upon  her  wifely  stedfastness." 

He  gathers  her  in  his  arms,  and  kisses  her  ;  but  she 
takes  no  heed  of  it,  out  of  astonishment,  nor  hears 
any  thing  he  says :  upon  which  he  exclaims,  that,  as 
sure  as  Christ  died  for  him,  she  is  his  wife,  and  he  will 
have  no  other,  nor  ever  had ;  and  with  that  he  intro- 
duces his  supposed  bride  to  her  as  her  own  daughter, 
with  his  son  by  her  side  ;  and  Griselda,  overcome  at 
last,  faints  away. 

"  When  she  this  heard,  aswoone  down  she  falleth 
For  piteous  joy ;  and,  after  her  swooning. 
She  both  her  young6  children  to  her  calleth. 
And  in  her  armes,  piteously  weeping, 
Embraceth  them,  and  tenderly  kissing 
Full  like  a  mother  with  her  sake  tears 
She  bathed  both  their  visage  and  their  hairs. 

Oh  !  such  a  piteous  thing  it  was  to  see 

Her  swooning,  aud  her  humble  voice  to  hear! 

'  Grand  vmry !  Lord,  God  thank  it  you  (quoth  she), 

That  ye  have  sav6d  me  my  children  dear : 

Now  reckt  I  never  to  be  dead  right  here. 

Since  I  stand  in  your  love  and  in  your  grace, 

No  force  of  death,!:  nor  when  my  spirit  pace. 

'  0  tender,  O  dear,  O  yoimg6  children  mine ! 
Your  woful  mother  weened  steadfastly, 
That  cruel  houndes  or  some  foul  vermin 

*  Sad;  composed  in  manner;  unaltered, 
t  Reck;  care.  \  Xo  force  of  rieath  ;  no  matter  for  death. 

VOL.   I.  21 


242  THE    SEER. 

Had  eaten  you  :  but  God  of  his  mercy 

And  your  benigi  6  father  tenderly 

Hath  done  you  keep ; '  and  in  that  sam6  stound 

All  suddenly  she  swapped  adovvn  to  ground. 

And  in  her  swoon  so  sadly  holdeth  she 
Her  children  two  when  she  'gan  them  embrace. 
That  with  great  sleight  and  great  difficidly 
The  children  from  her  arm  theij  'gan  arrace.* 
Oh  !  many  a  tear  on  many  a  piteous  face 
Down  ran  of  them  that  stooden  hei-  beside; 
Unnethe  abouten  her  might  they  abide." 

That  is,  they  could  scarcely  remain  to  look  at  her,  or 
stand  still.  And  so,  with  feasting  and  joy,  ends  this 
divine,  cruel  story  of  Patient  Griselda  ;  the  happiness 
of  which  is  superior  to  the  pain,  not  only  because  it 
ends  so  well,  but  because  there  is  ever  present  in  it, 
like  that  of  a  saint  in  a  pi6ture,  the  sweet,  sad  face  of 
the  fortitude  of  woman. 

*  A7-7-ace  (French,  arracher) ;  "  pluck." 


243 


SPECIMENS   OF   CHAUCER. 

No.  V. 
JFurther  Specimens  of  his  Pleasantry  and  Satire. 

THE   FAIRIES   SUPERSEDED    BT   THE    FRIARS. 

]HAUCER  was  one  of  the  reformers  of  his 
time  ;  and,  like  the  celebrated  poets  and  wits 
of  most  countries  (Catholic  included),  took 
pleasure  in  exposing  the  abuses  of  the  Church  ;  not 
because  he  was  an  ill-natin-ed  man,  and  disliked  the 
Church  itself  (for  no  one  has  done  gi'eater  honor  to 
the  true  Christian  pastor  than  he,  in  a  passage  already 
quoted),  but  because  his  very  good-nature,  and  love 
of  truth,  made  him  the  more  dislike  the  abuses  of  the 
best  things  in  the  most  reverend  places.  He  measures 
his  satire,  however,  according  to  its  desert,  and  is  se- 
verest upon  the  severe  and  mercenary,  —  the  holders  of 
such  livings  as  give  no  life,  but  rather  take  it.  In  the 
following  exquisite  banter,  he  rallies  the  more  jovial 
and  plebeian  part  of  the  Church  —  the  ordinary  begging- 
friars —  with  a  sly  good-humor.  And  observe  how  he 
contrives  to  sprinkle  the  passage  with  his  poetry.  Tlie 
versification,  also,  is  obviously  good,  even  to  the  most 
modern  ears :  — 


244  "T^^    SEER. 

"  In  okle  dayes  of  the  King  Artour, 
Of  which  that  Britons  speaken  great  hon6iir. 
All  was  this  land  fulfilled  of  Faery : 
The  Elf-queen,  with  her  jolly  company, 
Danced  full  oft  in  many  a  greene  mead. 
This  was  the  old  opinion,  as  I  read : 
I  speak  of  many  hundred  years  ago ; 
But  now  can  no  man  see  none  elves  mo  ; 
For  now  the  greate  charity  and  prayers 
Of  Umiters  and  other  holy  freres. 
That  searchen  every  land  and  every  stream, 
As  thick  as  inotis  in  the  sunni  beem, 
Blessing  halles,  chambers,  kitchenes,  and  bowers, 
Cities  and  boroughs,  castles  high  and  towers, 
Thorpes  and  barnes,  shepenes  and  dairies, 
Tliis  maketh  that  there  be  no  Faeries  : 
For  there  as  wont  to  walken  was  an  elf, 
There  walketh  now  the  liniiter  himself 
In  undermeal6s  and  in  morrowings, 
And  saith  his  matins  and  his  holy  things 
As  he  go'th  in  his  limitation. 
Women  may  now  go  safely  up  and  down : 
In  every  bush,  and  under  every  tree, 
Tha-e  is  no  other  Incubus  but  he." 


AN    IMPUDENT,   DEtTNEEN    SELLER   OF   PARDONS   AND    INDUL- 
GENCES   CONFESSES    FOR   WHAT    HE    PREACHES. 

Lordings,  quoth  he,  in  churche  when  I  preach 
I  pain6  me  to  have  an  hautein  speech. 


(I  do  my  best  to  speak  out  loud,) 

And  ring  it  out,  as  round  as  go'th  a  bell. 
For  I  can  all  by  rote  that  I  tell : 

(I  learn  all  I  say  by  heart :) 

My  theme  is  always  one,  and  ever  was, 
Radix  malorum  est  cupiditas. 


SPECIMENS    OF   CHAUCER.  245 

"  Covetousness  is  tlie  root  of  all  evil."  Chaucer  has 
fitted  his  Latin  capitally  well  in  with  the  measure,  —  u 
nicety  singularly  ill  obsei"ved  by  poets  in  general. 

First  I  pronounce  whemi^s  that  I  come. 
And  then  my  bulles 

(the  pope's  bulls) 

show  I,  all  and  some  ; 
Or  hege  lord6's  seal  on  my  patent, 
Tliat  show  I  first,  my  body  to  warr6nt, 
That  no  man  be  so  bold,  nor  priest  nor  clerk. 
Me  to  disturb  in  Christes  holy  work ; 
And  after  that,  then  tell  I  forth  my  tales ; 
Bulles  of  popes  and  cardmales, 
Of  patriarchs  and  of  bishopes,  I  show ; 
And  in  Latin  I  speak  a  wordes  few, 
To  saffron  with  my  predication, 

(To  give  a  color  and  relish  to  his  sermon,  like  saffron 
in  pastry,) 

And  for  to  steer  men  to  dev6tion. 

The  preacher  here  banters  his  own  relics,  and  then 
proceeds  with  the  following  ludicrous  picture  and  ex- 
quisitely impudent  avowal :  — 

Then  pain  I  me  to  stretchen  forth  my  neck, 
And  east  and  west  upon  the  people  I  beck, 
As  doth  a  dove  silting  upon  a  hum : 
My  handes  and  my  tongue  gone  so  yearn, 

(Go  so  briskly  together,) 

That  it  is  joy  to  see  my  business. 

Of  avarice  and  of  such  cursedness 

Is  all  my  preaching,  for  to  make  them  free 

To  give  their  pence,  and  namely,  —  unto  me  ; 


246  '  THE    SEER. 

For  mine  intent  is  nought  but  for  to  win. 
And  notliing  for  correction  of  sin ; 
I  reck  never,  when  that  tliey  be  buried. 
Though  that  their  soules  gone  a  blackberried. 

(That  is,  though  their  souls  go  by  bushels  into  the 
lower  regions,  like  so  many  blackberries.) 

Therefore  — 

(repeats  he,  at  the  end  of  the  next  paragraph,  varying 
the  note  a  little  like  a  relishing  musician)  — 

Therefore  my  theme  is  yet,  and  ever  was. 
Radix  malorum  est  cupiditas. 

IRONICAL  BIT    OP   TRANSLATION. 

In  the  story  of  the  "  Cock  and  tlie  Fox,"  the  gallant 
bird,  who  has  been  alarmed  by  the  fox,  is  compliment- 
ing his  favorite  wife,  and  introduces  some  Latin, — 
the  real  purport  of  which  is,  that  the  fair  sex  are  the 
"  confusion  of  mankind  ;  "  but  which,  he  informs  her, 
signifies  something  quite  the  reverse.  Sir  Walter 
Scott  admired  this  passage. 

But  let  us  speak  of  mirth,  and  stint  all  this. 
(Stop  all  this.) 

Madani6  Partelot,  so  have  I  bliss, 

Of  one  thing  God  hath  sent  me  large  grace ; 

For  when  I  see  the  beauty  of  your  face. 

Ye  be  so  scarlet  red  about  your  eyen, 

It  maketh  all  my  dreade  for  to  dien ; 

For  all  so  siker  as 

(As  sure  as) 

In  principio, 
Malier  est  hominis  confusio  : 
Madam,  the  sentence  of  this  Latin  is, 
"  Woman  is  mannes  joy  and  mannes  bliss." 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER.  247 

In  principio^  inuUer  est  hominis  confusio^  — 
"  Woman,  from  tlie  first,  was  the  confusion  of  man." 
"  In  principio"  obsen'es  Sir  Walter,  in  a  note  on  the 
passage  in  his  edition  of  "  Dryden,"  "  refers  to  the  be- 
ginning of  St.  John's  Gospel."  And,  in  a  note  on  the 
word  conftisio^  he  says  it  is  taken  from  a  fabulous 
conversation  between  the  Emperor  Adrian  and  the 
Philosopher  Secundus,  reported  by  Vincent  de  Beau- 
vais  in  his  "  Speculum  Historiale."  ^uid  est  inulier'? 
Hominis  confusio  :  insaturabilis  bcstia,  Sc.  "What 
is  woman?  The  confusion  of  man,  &c."  "  The  Cock's 
polite  version  (he  adds)  is  very  ludicrous." 

How  pleasant  to  hear  one  great  writer  thus  making 
another  laugh,  as  if  they  were  sitting  over  a  table 
together,  though  five  centuries  are  between  them ! 
But  genius  can  make  the  lightest  as  well  as  gravest 
things  the  property  of  all  time.  Its  laughs,  as  v.ell  as 
its  sighs,  are  immortal. 


248 


SPECIMENS   OF  CHAUCER. 

No.  VI. 

3Iisccllaneotis   Specitnens  of  Jiis  Description^ 
Portrait-paintings  and  Fine  Sense. 

BIEDS    IN    THE    SPRING. 


ULL  lusty  was  the  weather  and  benign ; 
For  which  the  fowls  against  the  sunne  sheen 
(What  for  the  season  and  the  young6  green) 
FuU  loude  sungen  their  affections : 
Them  seemed  had  getten  them  protecti(Sns 
Against  the  sword  of  winter,  keen  and  cold. 

Squire's  Tale. 

PATIENCE    AND    EQUAL   DEALING    IN    LOVE 

For  one  thing,  sirs,  safely  dare  I  say. 

That  friendes  ever  each  other  must  ohey. 

If  they  will  long6  holden  company  : 

Love  will  not  be  constrained  by  mastery  : 

When  mastery  cometh,  the  god  of  Love  anon 

Beateth  his  wings,  and  farewell  !  he  is  gone. 

[Compare  the  ease,  life,  and  gesticulation  of  this  — 
the  audible  suddenness  ?a\A.  fareivell  of  it  —  with  the 
balanced  and  formal  imitation  by  Pope  :  — 

"Love,  free  as  air,  at  sight  of  Iniman  ties 
Spreads  his  light  wings,  and  in  a  nionient  flies."] 

Love  is  a  thing  as,  any  spirit,  free. 
Women  of  kind  desiren  liberty. 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER.  249 

And  not  to  be  constrained  as  a  thrall ; 
And  so  do  men,  if  soothly  I  say  shall. 
Look,  who  that  is  most  patient  in  love, 
He  is  at  his  advantage  all  above. 

(He  has  the  advantage  over  others  that  are  not  so.) 

Patience  is  a  high  virtue  certdin ; 

For  it  vanqiiisheth,  as  these  devices  sain, 

Thingcs  that  rigour  never  should  attain  : 

For  every  word  men  should  not  chide  or  plain. 

Learnetk  to  suff'ren ; 

(Learn  to  suffer ;) 

or,  so  may  I  gone, 

(So  may  I  prosper,) 

Ye  shall  it  learn,  whether  ye  will  or  nan. 

The  Franklin's  Tale. 

INA15ILITY    TO    DIE. 

Three  drunken  rioters  go  out  to  kill  Death,  who 

meets  them  in  the  likeness  of  a  decrepit  old  man,  and 

diredls  them  to  a  treasure  w^hich  brings  them  to  their 

destruction.     The  old  man  only  is  given  here  :  — 

When  they  had  gone  not  fully  half  a  mile, 

Right  as  they  would  have  trodden  o'er  a  stile, 

An  old  man  and  a  poore  with  them  met : 

This  olde  man  full  meekely  them  gret, 

And  said6  thus  :  "  Now,  lordes,  God  you  see ! " 

The  proudest  of  those  riotour^s  three 

Answered  again :  "  What  1  churl,  with  sorry  grace. 

Why  art  thou  all  forwrapped  save  thy  facel 

Why  Uvest  thou  so  long  in  so  great  age  'J " 

This  olde  man  '<jan  look  in  his  visd<jc, 
And  saidc  thus  :  "  For  I  ne  cannot  find 
A  man,  thoiu/h  that  I  walked  into  Iml, 
Keither  in  city  nor  in  no  village. 
That  woulde  change  his  youthe  for  mine  age ; 
And  therefore  must  I  have  mine  age  still 
As  long6  time  as  it  is  Godd6s  will. 


250  THE    SEER. 

Ne  Death,  alas  !  ne  will  not  have  my  life : 
Thus  walk  I,  like  a  restoless  caitiiF; 
And  on  the  ground,  which  is  my  mother's  gate, 
I  knocke  with  my  statf  early  and  late, 
And  say  to  her,  '  Leve  mother,  let  me  in, 
Lo  !  how  I  vanish,  flesh  and  blood  and  skin  ! 
Alas  !  when  shall  my  bon^s  be  at  rest? 
Mother,  with  you  would  I  change  my  chest. 
That  in  my  chamber  longe  time  hath  be, 
Yea,  for  an  hairy  clout  to  wrap  in  me.'  " 

(That  is,  for  a  coffin  and  a  winding-sheet  of  hair- 
cloth.) 

DESCRIPTION   OP   THE    COCK. 

{In  the  Story  of  the  "  Cock  and  the  Fox.-'') 

His  comb  was  redder  than  the  fine  cordl, 
Emhatteled  as  it  were  a  castle  wall ; 
His  bill  was  black,  and  as  the  jet  it  shone ; 
Like  azure  were  his  leggis  and  his  tone ; 

(His  toes  ;) 

His  nailis  lohiter  than  the  lihj  flower ; 
And  like  the  humid  gold  was  his  coldur. 

Compare  the  above  verses  (taking  care  of  the  accent) 
with  the  most  popular  harmonies  of  Pope,  and  see 
into  what  a  flowing  union  of  strength  and  sweetness 
the  "old  poet"  could  get  when  he  chose. 

He  flew  down  from  his  beam. 
For  it  was  day,  and  eke  his  hennes  all ; 
And  with  a  chuck  he  'gau  them  for  to  call. 
For  he  had  found  a  corn  lay  in  the  yard  : 
Eoyal  he  was ;  he  was  no  more  afeard. 

(He  had  been  frightened  by  a  fox.) 

He  looketh,  as  it  were  a  grim  Uoan, 

(Lion,) 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCER.  25 1 

And  on  his  tnes  he  roameth  up  and  down  ; 
He  deigneth  not  to  set  his  foot  to  ground : 
He  chucketh  when  he  hath  a  corn  yfound ; 
And  to  him  runnen  then  his  wivfes  all. 

PORTRAIT    OF    A    FEMALE. 

This  is  in  the  pure,  unfaltering  style  of  the  old 
Italian  painters.  The  simile  in  the  third  line  is  one 
of  the  quaintnesses  of  an  age  in  which  books  were 
rare,  —  the  key  to  almost  all  the  quaintnesses  of  Chau- 
cer. The  rest  of  them  are  conne6led  with  his  adhe- 
rence to  tlie  originals  from  which  he  translated,  and 
only  appear  strange  from  dift'erence  of  time  or  national 
customs.  A  want  of  consideration  to  this  eft'e6l  led 
Mr.  Hazlitt  into  an  error,  when  he  instanced  that 
pleasant,  scornful  admonition  to  the  sun  in  "  Troilus 
and  Creseida"  (to  go  and  sell  his  light  to  them  that 
"engrave  small  seals")  as  an  evidence  of  Chaucer's 
minuteness  and  particularity. 

The  original  of  "  Troilus  and  Creseida"  was  by  an 
Italian  ;  and  in  Italy  the  seal-engravers  of  those  times 
were  famous,  and  in  great  employ  ;  nor  was  any  thing 
more  natural  for  a  lover,  angry  with  the  day-time,  than 
to  tell  the  sun  to  go  and  give  his  light  to  those  that  so 
notoriously  needed  it. 

Among  those  other  folk  was  Creseida 
In  widow's  habit  black  ;  but  natheless 
Right  as  our  first  letter  is  now  an  A, 
In  beauty  first  so  stood  she  makeless  : 

(Matchless :) 

Her  goodly  looTdng  gladded  all  the  press  ; 

"  N'as  never  seen  thing  to  be  praised  so  dear, 

Nor  under  cloudi  black  so  bright  a  star, 


2152  THE    SEER. 

[What  a  pity  this  fine  line  did  not  terminate  with  a 
full  stop  !   but  he  goes  on,] 

As  was  Creseid,"  they  saiden  evereach  one. 
That  her  behelden  in  her  blacke  weed ; 
And  yet  she  stood  full  low  and  still  alone, 
Behind  all  other  folks  in  little  brede, 

(In  small  space,)  ''^\ 

And  nigh  the  door,  aye  under  shames  drede, 

(That  is,  not  shame-faced,  but  apprehensive  of  being 
put  to  shame, —  put  out  of  her  self-possession,) 

Simple  of  attire  and  debonnair  of  cheer ; 
With  full-assured  looking  and  mannire. 

Troilus,  thus  seeing  her  for  the  first  time,  looks 
hard  at  her,  like  a  town-gallant ;  and  she,  being  town- 
bred  herself,  for  all  her  unaftedledness,  thinks  it 
necessary  to  let  him  understand  that  he  is  not  to  stare 

at  her. 

She  n'as  not  with  the  most  of  her  statiire, 

(Her  stature  was  not  of  the  tallest,) 

But  all  her  Umbes  so  well  answering 
Weren  to  womanhood,  that  creature 
Was  never  lesse  mannish  in  seeming, 
And  eke  the  pure  wise  of  her  meaning 
She  showed  well, 

(Her  manner  was  so  correspondent  with  her  mean- 

that  men  might  in  her  guess 
Honour,  estate,  and  womanly  nobless. 
Then  Troilus,  right  wonder  well  witha!, 
'Gan  for  to  like  her  meaning  and  her  cheer, 
Which  somedeal  deignous  was  ; 

(Was  a  little  haughty  ;) 


SPECIMENS    OF    CIIAUCER.  253 

for  she  let  fall 
Her  look  a  little  aside,  in  such  mannere 
Ascaunces,  —  "  Whdt !  may  I  not  standen  here  ?  " 
And  after  tliat  her  looking  'gan  she  light ; 

(Began  to  lighten,  —  to  restore  to  its  former  ease  ;) 

That  never  thought  him  see  so  good  a  sigiit. 

Chaucer  is  very  fond  of  painting   these   womanly 
portraits,  especially  the  face.     Here  is  — 

ANOTHER, 

introduced  to  us  with  a  piece  of  music.  The  succes- 
sion of  adverbs  at  the  end  of  the  first  five  lines  makes 
a  beat  upon  the  measure,  analogous  to  the  dance  he  is 
speaking  of:  — 

I  saw  her  dance  so  comely, 

Carol  and  sing  so  sweetly, 

And  laugh  and  play  so  luomanly, 

And  looken  so  debonairly, 

So  goodly  speak  and  so  friendly. 

That  eertes  I  trow  that  evermore 

N'as  seen  so  blissful  a  treasore. 

For  every  haire  on  her  head, 

Me  soth  to  say  it  was  not  red, 

Ne  neither  yellow,  nor  brown  it  n'as ; 

Methought  most  lilte  to  gold  it  was. 

And  which  eyen  my  lady  had, 

Debonaire,  good,  and  glad,  and  sad ; 

(Sad  is  in  earnest ;) 

Simple,  of  good  muchel,  not  too  wide ; 
Thereto  her  look  was  not  aside 
Nor  overthawt,  but  beset  so  well, 
It  drew  and  took  up  every  deal, 

(Entirely,) 


254  '^^''^    SEER. 

All  which  that  on  her  'gan  behold ; 
Her  eyen  seemed  anon  she  would 
Have  mercy.     Folly  weenden  so, 
But  it  was  ne'er  the  rather  do : 

(She  looked  so  good-natured,  that  folly  itself  thought 
she  was  at  its  service  ;  though  folly  was  much  mis- 
taken :) 

It  was  no  counterfeited  thing ; 

It  was  her  own  pure  looking. 

A  charming  couplet !  And  he  need  not  have  said  any 
more  ;  but,  he  was  so  fond  of  the  face,  he  could  not 
help  going  on  :  — 

Were  she  ne'er  so  glad, 
Her  looking  ivas  not  foolish  spread. 

Though  dulness  itself,  he  tells  us,  was  absolutely 
"  afraid  of  her  style  of  life,  it  was  so  cheerful." 

I  have  no  wit  that  can  suffice 
To  comprehenden  her  beauty. 

(To  describe  it  comprehensively.) 

But  thus  much  I  dare  say,  that  she 
Was  white,  ruddy,  fresh,  Uvely  hued, 
And  every  day  her  beauty  newid. 
.  .  .  Be  it  ne'er  so  dark, 
Me  thinketh  I  see  her  evermo. 

(If  all  they,  says  the  poet,) 

That  ever  lived  were  now  alive, 
Ne  would  they  have  found  to  descrive 
In  all  her  face  a  wicked  sign ; 
For  it  was  sad,  simple,  and  benign. 

The  Book  of  the  Duchess. 

And  there  is  a  great  deal  more  of  the  description. 


SPECIMENS    OF    CHAUCKR.  355 

GOIXG    TO    SLEBP    IN    HEARING    OF    A    NIGHTINGALE. 

A  nightingale  upon  a  cedar  green, 

Under  tlie  chamber  wall  there  as  she  lay. 

Fall  loud  ysung  again  the  nioone  sheen. 

Par  'venture,  m  his  birdes  wise,  a  lay 

Of  love,  that  made  her  hearte  fresh  and  gay; 

That  hearkened  she  so  long  in  good  intent, 

Till  at  the  last  the  dead6  sleep  her  hent. 

Troilus  and  Creseida. 

EXQUISITE    COMPAKISON    OF    A    NIGHTINGALE,    WITH    CONFIDENCE 

AFTER    FEAR. 

And  as  the  new  abashed  nightingale, 
That  stinteth  first  when  she  beginneth  sing, 
Wlien  that  she  heareth  any  herd&s  tale, 

(Herdsman  counting  his  flock,) 

Or  in  the  hedges  any  wight  stirring ; 

And  after,  siker  doth  her  voice  outring  : 

(Siker  is  securely :) 

Right  so  Creseidi,  when  that  her  aread  stent, 
Opened  her  heart,  and  told  him  her  intent. 

We  conclude  this  long  article,  very  unwillingly  (hav- 
ing to  omit  a  hundred  beautiful  passages),  with  a 
specimen  of  Chaucer's  philosophy,  particularly  fit  to 
honor  these  pages  :  — 

For  thilkd  ground  that  beareth  the  weedes  wick 

(Wicked  or  poisonous) 

Bear'th  eke  these  wholesome  herbes  as  full  oft  ; 
And  next  to  the  foul  nettle,  rough  and  thick. 
The  rose  ywaxelh  sate  and  smooth  and  soft ; 
And  next  the  valley  is  the  hill  alojl ; 
And  next  the  darkd  night  is  the  glad  morrow. 
And  also  joy  is  next  the  fine  of  sorrow. 


2 


^6 


PETER  WILKINS  AND   THE  FLYING 
WOMEN. 


HE  "Adventures  of  Peter  Wilkins"  is  a  book 
written  about  a  hundred  years  back,  purport- 
ing to  be  the  work  of  a  shipwrecked  voyager, 
and  relating  the  discoveiy  of  a  l^eople  who  had  wings. 
It  is  mentioned  somewhere,  with  great  esteem,  by  Mr. 
Southey,  if  our  memory  does  not  deceive  us  ;  and  has 
been  altogether  so  much  adinired,  and  so  popular,  that 
we  ai-e  surprised  Mr.  Dunlop  has  omitted  it  in  his 
"  History  of  Fiaion."  The  name,  "  Peter  Wilkins," 
has,  to  the  present  perplexed  and  aspiring  generation 
(not  yet  knowing  what  to  retain  and  what  to  get  rid 
of),  a  poor  and  vulgar  sound.  It  is  not  Montreville  or 
Mordaunt  or  Montgomery.  "Peter"  is  not  the  name 
for  a  card.  "  Wilkins  "  hardly  announces  himself  as  a 
diner  with  dukes.  But,  a  hundred  years  ago,  people 
did  not  conceive  that  a  gentleman's  pretensions  wei^e 
nominal.  What  novelist  now-a-days  would  call  his 
hero  "Tom  Jones"?  Yet  thus  was  his  great  work 
christened  by  Fielding,  — a  man  of  noble  family. 
However,  there  is  a  "  preferment "  in  the  instinct  of 
this  aspiration.  Society  has  had  a  lift,  and  is  inclined 
to  take  every  thing  for  an  advantage  and  an  elegance 
which  it  sees  in  possession  of  its  new  company.     By 


PETER    WILKINS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN.       257 

and  by,  it  will  be  content  with  the  real  elegances,  and 
drop  the  pretended. 

It  is  a  great  honor  to  a  writer  to  invent  a  being  at 
once  new  and  delightful ;  and  the  honor  is  not  the 
less  for  the  apparent  obviousness  of  the  invention. 
Let  any  one  tiy  to  make  a  new  combination  of  this 
sort,  and  he  will  find  how  difficult  it  is.  We  will 
venture  to  say,  that,  besides  genius  in  the  oi'dinary 
sense  of  the  word,  there  is  a  faith  in  it,  and  a  remote- 
ness from  things  worldly,  that  implies  a  virtue  and  a 
child-like  simplicity,  not  common  but  to  minds  of  the 
higher  order.  Some  writers  would  think  they  were 
going  to  be  merely  childish,  and  would  very  properly 
desist.  Others  would  be  apprehensive  of  ridicule, 
and  would  desist  with  like  reason.  Not  that  every- 
body would  succeed  who  fancied  he  should.  Taste 
and  judgment  are  requisite  to  all  good  inventions,  as 
well  as  an  imagination  to  find  them :  and  there  must 
be,  above  all,  a  strong  taste  for  the  truth  ;  verisimili- 
tude, or  the  likeness  of  truth,  being  the  great  charm 
in  the  wildest  of  fictions.  It  is  very  difficult  to  unite 
the  imaginative  with  the  worldly ;  and  men  of  real 
genius  sometimes  make  mistakes,  in  consequence,  fit 
only  for  the  most  literal  or  incoherent  understandings. 

We  have  headed  our  article  "  Flying  Women," 
instead  of  the  "  Flying  People  ;  "  because,  though  the 
beings  discovered  by  our  friend  Peter  are  of  both 
sexes,  we  could  never  quite  persuade  ourselves  that 
his  males  had  an  equal  right  to  their  graiindee.  All, 
however,  that  he  says  about  the  Flying  Nation  as  a 
people  is  ingenious.  He  has  escaped,  in  particular, 
in  a  most  happ)'  manner,  from  the  difficulty  of  intro- 
voL.  I.  22 


25S  THE    SEER. 

ducing  his  plain-backed  hero  among  them  without 
lessening  his  dignity,  by  means  of  implicating  him 
with  a  prophecy  important  to  their  well-being :  and 
his  speculations  upon  their  religion  and  policy  show 
him  to  have  been  a  man  of  an  original  turn  of 
reflecftion  in  every  thing ;  good-hearted,  and  zealous 
for  the  advancement  of  mankind.  But  his  lords,  his 
archite6ls,  and  his  miners,  violate  the  remoteness  of 
his  invention,  and  bring  it  back  to  common-place ; 
nor  was  tliis  necessary  to  render  his  work  useful. 
The  utility  of  a  work  of  imagination  consists  in  soft- 
ening and  elevating  the  mind  generally ;  and  this  is 
the  effedl  of  his  Flying  Woman.  All  that  relates  to 
her  is  luckily  set  in  a  frame  by  itself;  is  remote,  quiet, 
and  superior.  She  is  as  much  above  Peter's  race  in 
sincerity  as  in  her  wings  ;  and  yet  there  is  nothing 
about  her,  which,  in  a  higher  state  of  humanity,  the 
author  does  not  succeed  in  making  us  suppose  pos- 
sible. Peter  is  even  raised  towards  her  by  dint  of  his 
admiration  of  her  truth ;  and  the  sweetness  of  her 
disposition  more  than  meets  him  half-way,  and  sets 
them  both  on  a  level. 

The  author  of  this  curious  invention  must  have  been 
a  very  modest  as  well  as  clever  man,  or  have  had 
some  peculiar  reasons  for  keeping  his  name  a  secret ; 
for  he  was  living  when  the  work  arrived  at  a  second 
edition.  The  dedication  does  not  appear  in  the  first ; 
and  the  writer,  who  signs  himself  R.  P.,  speaks  in  it 
of  the  heroine  as  his  property.  It  is  observable,  that, 
in  all  the  editions  we  have  met  with,  tlie  initials  R.  P. 
are  signed  to  the  dedication,  while  R.  S.  is  put  in  the 
titlepage.     This  also  looks  like  a  negligence  uncom- 


PETER    WILKINS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMKN,       259 

moil  in  authors.  The  dedication  is  to  Elizabeth, 
Countess  of  Northumberland,  —  the  lady  to  whom 
Bishop  Percy  dedicated  his  "  Reliques  of  Ancient 
English  Poetry."  We  have  sometimes  fancied  that 
Abraham  Tucker  wrote  it,  or  Bishop  Berkeley.  It 
has  all  the  ease  and  the  cordial  delicacy  of  the  best 
days  that  followed  the  "  Tatler,"  as  well  as  their 
tendency  to  theological  discvission.  The  mediocrity 
of  the  author's  station  in  life  might  have  been  invent- 
ed, to  make  the  picture  of  a  sea-faring  philosopher 
more  real ;  though  the  names  of  the  children.  Tommy 
and  Pedro^  hardly  seem  a  contrast  which  a  scholar 
could  have  allowed  himself  to  give  in  to.  The  turn  of 
words,  invented  for  the  flying  people,  is  copied  from 
Swift,  and  cannot  be  called  happy.  There  is  a  want 
of  analogy  in  them  to  the  smoothness,  and  even  the 
energy,  of  flying.  The  ancient  name  of  tlie  country, 
Nosmnbdsgrsutt^  is  more  fit  for  that  of  the  Hou- 
hynhyms.  Armdrumstake^  Babhrindrugg^  Crash- 
doorpt^  and  Htinkun  (marriage),  and  Gliumn  (a 
man),  are  words  too  ugly  for  any  necessity  of  looking 
natural.  We  are  hardly  reconciled  to  the  name  of 
Youwarkee  for  the  heroine.  Gazvrey  (a  woman)  is 
hardly  so  good  ;  but  the  Graundee^  the  name  of  the 
flying  apparatus,  will  do.  There  is  a  grandctir  in  it. 
We  see  it  expand,  and  "  display  its  pomp,"  as  Tasso 
says  of  the  peacock.  The  hero's  name  was  most 
likely  suggested  by  that  of  a  celebrated  advocate  of  the 
possibility  of  flying,  —  Wilkins,  Bishop  of  Chester.* 
Upon   the   whole,  if  we  were   in   possession   of  the 

*  The  bishop  is  said  to  have  been  asked  by  the  flighty  Duchess  of 
Newcastle  how  people  who  took  a  voyage  to  the  moon  were  to  manage 


26o  THE    SEER. 

Berkeley  Manuscripts,  we  should  look  hard  to  find  a 
memorandum  indicative  of  the  bishop's  being  the 
author  of  this  delightful  invention.  Even  the  miners 
seem  to  belong  to  the  author  of  the  Bermuda  scheme ; 
and  he  had  traversed  the  seas,  and  been  conversant 
with  all  honest  paths  of  life.  There  would  also  have 
appeared  to  him  good  reason  for  not  avowing  the 
book,  how  Christian  soever,  when  he  came  to  be  a 
bishop.     But  these  inquiries  are  foreign  to  our  pages. 

A  peacock,  with  his  plumage  displayed,  full  of 
"  rainbows  and  starry  eyes,"  is  a  fine  objedl ;  but 
think  of  a  lovely  woman  set  in  front  of  an  ethereal 
shell,  and  wafted  about  like  a  Venus.  This  is, 
perhaps,  the  best  general  idea  that  can  be  given  of 
Peter  Wilkins's  bride.  In  the  first  edition  of  the  work, 
published  in  1751  (at  least,  we  know  of  none  earlier), 
there  is  an  engraved  explanation  of  the  wings,  or 
rather  drapery  ;  for  such  it  was  when  at  rest.  It  might 
be  called  a  natural  webbed-silk.  We  are  to  pidture  to 
ourselves  a  nymph  in  a  vest  of  the  finest  texture  and 
most  delicate  carnation.  On  a  sudden,  this  drapery 
parts  in  two,  and  flies  back,  stretched  from  head  to  foot 
behind  the  figure,  like  an  oval  fan  or  umbrella  ;  and 
the  lady  is  in  front  of  it,  preparing  to  sweep  blushing 
away  from  us,  and  "  winnow  the  buxom  air." 

It  has  been  objected,  that  the  wings  of  Peter's 
woman  consist  rather  of  something  laced  and  webbed 
than  proper  angelical  wings ;  that  this  sometliing 
serves  her  also  for  drapery  ;   that  the  drapery  therefore 

for  "  baiting-places."  To  which  he  replied,  with  great  felicity,  that  he 
wondered  at  such  a  question  from  her  grace,  "  who  had  biiilt  so  many 
castles  in  the  air.  " 


PETER    AVILKINS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN.       261 

is  alive,   and  that  we  should  be  shocked   to   find   it 
warm   and    stirring.     The    objedlion    is  natural    in    a 
merely  animal  point  of  view ;    and  yet,  speaking  for 
ourselves,  we  confess  we  have  been  so  accustomed  to 
idealities,  and  to   aspirations   after   the   predominancy 
of  moral  beauty  in  physical,  that  it  is  with  an  eflbrt  we 
allow  it  to  be  so.     Supposing  it,  at  first,  to  be  some- 
thing to  which  we  should  have  to  grow  reconciled,  we 
conceive  that  pity  for  the  supposed  deformity  would 
only  endear  us  the  more  to  the  charming  and  perfect 
womanhood    to    which    it    was    attached.     We    have 
often  thought  that  real  tenderness  for  the   sex  would 
not  be  so  great  or  so  touching  —  certainly  it  could  not 
be  so  well  proved  —  if  women  partook  less  than  they 
do  of  imperfection.     But  the  ethereal  power  as  well  as 
grace  belonging  to  our  flying  beauties  could  not  long 
permit  us  to  associate  the  idea  with  deformity.     Our 
admiration  of  beauty,  as  it  is  (unless  we   hold,  with 
some  philosophers,  that  it  is  a  dire6l  ordinance  of  the 
Divine  Being),  is  the  effect  of  custom  and  kind  offices. 
It  is  true,  there  is  something  in  mere  smoothness  and 
harmony  of  form  which   appears  to  be   sufficient  of 
itself  to  affedl  us  with  pleasing  emotions,  distinct  from 
any  reference  to  moral  beauty  ;  but  the  last  secrets  of 
pleasures  the  most  material  are  in  the  brain  and  the 
imagination.     The  lowest  sensualist,  if  he  were  capa- 
ble of  reflection,  would  find  that  he  was  endeavoring 
to  grasp  some  shadow  of  grace  and  kindliness,  even 
when  he  fancied   himself  least  given   to   such    refine- 
ments.    The  worst  like  to  receive  pleasures  from  the 
best.     The    most   hypocritical    seducer,    in    the    sorry 
improvidence  of  his  selfishness,  seeks  to  be  mistaken 


262  THE    SEER. 

for  what  he  is  not ;    to   enjoy  innocence   instead   of 
guilt ;   to  read  in  the  eyes  of  simphcity  what  a  trans- 
port it  is  to  be  loved  ;   and  to  piece  out  the  instin6live 
consciousness  of  his  own  want  of  a  just  moral  power 
by  the  stealing  of  one  that  is  unjust.     Being  a  man,  he 
cannot  help  these  involuntary  tributes  to  the  soul  of 
beauty.     If  it  were  otherwise,  he  would  be  an  idiot, 
or  a  fly  on  the  wall.     We  think  it,  therefore,  perfedtly 
natural  in   our   friend   Peter,    seeing   of  what   lovely 
elements  the  mind  as  well  as  the  body  of  his  new 
acquaintance  is  composed,  to  feel  nothing  but  admira- 
tion for  an  appendage  which  doubles  her  power  to  do 
him  good,  and  which  realizes  what  it  is  natural  for  us 
all  to  long  for  in  our  dreams.     The  wish  to  fly  seems 
to    belong   instinctively    to    all    imaginative    states    of 
being,  —  to  dreams,  to  childhood,  and  to  love.     Flying 
seems  the  next  step  to  a  higher  state  of  being.     If  we 
could  fancy  human  nature  taking  another  degi'ee  in 
the  scale,  and  displacing  the  present  inhabitants  of  the 
world  by  a  new  set  of  creatures  personally  improved, 
the  result  of  a  climax  in  refinement,  what  we  should 
exped:  in  them  would  be  wings  to  their  shoulders. 

We  proceed  to  lay  before  our  readers,  from  the 
complete  edition  of  this  romance,*  tlie  passages  de- 
scribing our  hei'o's  first  knowledge  of  the  flying 
people,  and  the  accovuit  of  his  bride  and  her  behavior. 

"  As  I  lay  awake  (says  oiu-  voyager)  one  night  or 
day,  I  know  not  which,  I  very  plainly  heard  the  sound 

*  Some  abridgments,  purporting  to  be  the  entire  work,  afford  almost 
as  inadeqiiate  an  idea  of  it  in  spirit  as  in  letter.  One  or  two  of  Stot- 
hard's  designs,  in  tlie  edition  in  the  "Novelist's  Magazine,"  do  justice 
to  the  grace  and  delicacy  of  the  heroine. 


PETER    WILKINS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN.       263 

of  several  human  voices,  and  sometimes  very  loud  : 
but,  though  I  could  easily  distinguish  the  articulations, 
I  could  not  understand  the  least  word  that  was  said ; 
nor  did  the  voices  seem  at  all  to  me  like  such  as  I  had 
anywhere  heard  before,  but  much  softer  and  more 
musical.  This  startled  me  ;  and  I  arose  immediately, 
slipping  on  my  clothes,  and  taking  my  gun  in  my 
hand  (which  I  always  kept  charged,  being  my  con- 
stant travelling  companion)  and  my  cutlass.  I  was 
inclined  to  open  the  door  of  my  ante-chamber ;  but  I 
own  I  was  afraid :  besides,  I  considered  that  I  could 
discover  nothing  at  any  distance,  by  reason  of  the 
thick  and  gloomy  wood  that  enclosed  me. 

"  I  had  a  thousand  different  surmises  about  the 
meaning  of  this  odd  incident ;  and  could  not  conceive 
how  any  human  creatures  should  be  in  my  kingdom 
(as  I  called  it)  but  myself,  as  I  never  yet  saw  them,  or 
any  trace  of  their  habitation. 

"  These  thoughts  kept  me  still  more  within  doors 
than  before ;  and  I  hardly  ever  stirred  out  but  for 
water  or  firing.  At  length,  hearing  no  more  voices, 
nor  seeing  any  one,  I  began  to  be  more  composed  in 
my  mind  ;  and  at  last  grew  persuaded  it  was  all  a 
mere  delusion,  and  only  a  fancy  of  mine  without  any 
real  foundation  :  so  tl:ie  whole  notion  was  soon  blown 
over. 

"  I  had  not  enjoyed  my  tranquillity  above  a  week 
before  my  fears  were  roused  afresh,  hearing  the  same 
sound  of  voices  twice  in  the  same  night,  but  not  many 
minutes  at  a  time  ;  and  I  was  resolved  not  to  venture 
out :  but  then  I  determined,  if  they  should  come  again 
any  thing  near  my  grotto,  to  open  the  door,  see  who 


264  THE    SEER. 

they  were,  and  stand  upon  my  defence,  whatever 
came  of  it.  Thus  had  I  formed  my  scheme  :  but  I 
heard  no  more  of  them  for  a  great  while  ;  so  that,  at 
length,  I  became  tranquil  again. 

"  I  passed  tlie  summer  (though  I  had  never  yet 
seen  the  sun's  body)  very  much  to  my  satisfa<5tion : 
partly  in  the  work  I  had  been  describing  (for  I  had 
taken  two  more  seals,  and  had  a  great  quantity  of  oil 
from  them)  ;  partly  in  building  me  a  chimney  in  my 
ante-chamber  of  mud  and  earth,  burnt  on  my  own 
hearth  into  a  sort  of  brick ;  in  making  a  window  at 
one  end  of  the  above-said  chamber,  to  let  in  what 
little  light  would  come  through  the  trees  when  I  did 
not  choose  to  open  my  door ;  in  moulding  an  earthen 
lamp  for  my  oil ;  and,  finally,  in  providing  and  laying 
stores,  fresh  and  salt  (for  I  had  now  cured  and  dried 
many  more  fish),  against  winter.  These,  I  say,  were 
my  summer  employments  at  home,  intermixed  w^ith 
many  agreeable  excursions.  But  now,  the  winter 
coming  on,  and  the  days  growing  very  short,  or  indeed 
there  being  no  day,  properly  speaking,  but  a  kind  of 
twilight,  kept  mostly  in  my  habitation,  though  not  so 
much  as  I  had  done  the  winter  before,  when  I  had  no 
light  within  doors,  and  slept,  or  at  least  lay  still,  great 
part  of  my  time ;  for  now  m}^  lamp  was  never  out. 
I  also  turned  two  of  my  seal-skins  into  a  rug  to  cover 
my  bed  ;  and  the  third  into  a  cushion,  which  I  always 
sat  upon  ;  and  a  very  soft,  warm  cushion  it  made.  All 
this  together  rendered  my  life  very  easy ;  nay,  even 
comfortable  :  but,  a  little  while  after  the  darkness  or 
twilight  came  on,  I  frequentl}-  heard  the  voices  again, 


PETER    AVIEKINS    AND    THE    FEYING    WOMEN.       265 

sometimes  in  great  numbers.  This  threw  me  into 
new  fears ;  and  I  became  as  uneasy  as  ever,  even  to 
the  degree  of  growing  quite  melancholy. 

"  At  length  one  night  or  day,  I  cannot  say  which, 
hearing  the  voices  very  distinctly,  and  praying  very 
earnestly  to  be  either  delivered  from  the  uncertainty 
they  had  put  me  under,  or  to  have  them  removed  from 
me,  I  took  courage,  and,  arming  myself  with  a  gun, 
listened  to  distinguish  from  whence  the  voices  pro- 
ceeded ;  when  I  felt  such  a  thump  upon  the  roof  of 
my  ante-chamber  as  shook  the  whole  fabric,  and  set 
me  all  over  into  a  tremor.  I  then  heard  a  sort  of 
shriek  and  a  rustle  near  the  door  of  my  apartment :  all 
which  together  seemed  very  terrible.  But  I,  having 
before  determined  to  see  what  and  who  it  was,  res-, 
olutely  opened  my  door,  and  leaped  out.  I  saw 
nobody :  all  was  quite  silent,  and  nothing  that  I  could 
perceive,  but  my  own  fears,  a-moving.  I  went  then 
softly  to  the  corner  of  my  building  ;  and  there,  looking 
down,  by  the  glimmer  of  my  lamp,  which  stood  in  the 
window,  I  saw  something  in  human  shape  lying  at 
my  feet.  I  asked,  '  Who's  there?'  No  one  answering, 
I  was  induced  to  take  a  near  view  of  the  object.  But 
judge  of  my  astonishment  when  I  discovered  tlie  face 
of  the  most  lovely  and  beautiful  woman  eyes  ever 
beheld !  I  stood  for  a  few  seconds  transfixed  with 
astonishment,  and  my  heart  was  ready  to  force  its  way 
through  my  sides.  At  length,  somewhat  recovering,  I 
perceived  her  more  minutely.  But  if  I  was  puzzled 
at  beholding  a  woman  alone  in  this  lonely  place,  how 
much  more  was  I  surprised  at  her  appearance  and 
dress !  She  had  a  sort  of  brown  chaplet,  like  lace, 
VOL.  I.  23 


266  THE    SEER. 

round  her  head,  under  and  about  which  her  hair  was 
tucked  up  and  twined ;  and  she  seemed  to  me  to  be 
clothed  in  a  thin  hair-colored  silk  garment,  which, 
upon  trying  to  raise  her,  I  found  to  be  quite  warm, 
and  therefore  hoped  there  was  life  in  the  body  it  con- 
tained. I  then  took  her  in  my  arms,  and  conveyed 
her  through  the  dooi-vvay  into  my  grotto ;  where  I 
laid  her  upon  my  bed. 

"  When  I  laid  her  down,  I  thought,  on  laying  my 
hand  on  her  breast,  I  perceived  the  fountain  of  life  had 
some  motion.  This  gave  me  infinite  pleasure :  so, 
warming  a  drop  of  wine,  I  dipped  my  finger  in  it,  and 
moistened  her  lips  two  or  tliree  times  ;  and  I  imagined 
they  opened  a  little.  Upon  this  I  bethought  me  ;  and, 
taking  a  teaspoon,  I  gently  poured  a  few  drops  of  the 
wine,  by  that  means,  into  her  mouth.  Finding  she 
swallowed  it,  I  poured  in  another  spoonful  and 
another,  till  I  brought  her  to  herself  so  well  as  to  be 
able  to  sit  up. 

"  I  then  spoke  to  her,  and  asked  her  divers  ques- 
tions, as  if  she  luiderstood  me  :  in  return  of  which,  she 
uttered  language  I  had  no  idea  of,  though  in  the  most 
musical  tone,  and  with  the  sweetest  accent  I  ever 
heard. 

"You  may  imagine  we  stared  heartily  at  each  other  ; 
and  I  doubted  not  but  she  wondered  as  much  as  I  by 
what  means  we  came  so  near  each  other.  I  offered 
her  every  thing  in  my  grotto  which  I  thought  might 
please  her ;  some  of  which  she  gratefully  received,  as 
appeared  by  her  looks  and  behavior.  But  she  avoided 
my  lamp,  and  always  placed  her  back  towards  it.  I 
observed  that,  and  took  care  to  set  it  in  such  a  position 


PETER    WILKIXS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN.       26/ 

myself  as  seemed  agreeable  to  her,  though  it  deprived 
me  of  a  prospedl  I  very  much  admired. 

"  After  we  had  sat  a  good  while,  —  now  and  then,  I 
may  say,  chattering  to  one  another,  —  she  got  up,  and 
took  a  turn  or  two  about  the  room.  When  I  saw  her 
in  that  attitude,  her  grace  and  motion  perfectly 
charmed  me,  and  her  shape  was  incomparable ;  but 
the  straitness  of  her  dress  put  me  to  a  loss  to  conceive 
either  what  it  was,  or  how  it  was  put  on. 

"  Well,  we  supped  togetlier,  and  I  set  the  best  of 
every  thing  I  had  before  her ;  nor  could  either  of  us 
forbear  speaking  in  our  own  tongue,  though  we  were 
sensible  neither  of  us  understood  the  other.  After 
supper,  I  gave  her  some  of  my  cordials,  for  which  she 
showed  great  tokens  of  thankfulness.  When  supper 
had  been  some  time  over,  I  showed  her  my  bed,  and 
made  signs  for  her  to  go  to  it ;  but  she  seemed  very 
shy  of  that,  till  I  showed  her  where  I  meant  to  lie  m}-- 
self,  by  pointing  to  myself,  then  to  that,  and  again 
pointing  to  her  and  to  my  bed.  When  at  length  I  had 
made  this  matter  intelligible  to  her,  she  lay  down  very 
composedly ;  and  after  I  had  taken  cai^e  of  my  fire, 
and  set  the  things  I  had  been  using  for  supper  in  their 
places,  I  laid  myself  down  too. 

"  I  treated  her  for  some  time  with  all  the  respect 
imaginable,  and  never  suffered  her  to  do  the  least  part 
of  my  work.  It  was  very  inconvenient  to  both  of  us 
only  to  know  each  other's  meaning  by  signs ;  but  I 
could  not  be  othenvise  than  pleased  to  see  that  she 
endeavored  all  in  her  power  to  learn  to  talk  like  me. 
Indeed,  I  was  not  behind-hand  with  her  in  that 
respedl,  striving  all  I  could  to  imitate  her.     With  this 


268  THE    SEER. 

we  at  last  succeeded  so  well,  that,  in  a  few  months,  we 
M^ere  able  to  hold  a  conversation  with  each  other. 

"  After  my  new  love  had  been  with  me  a  fortnight, 
finding  my  water  run  very  low,  I  was  greatly  troubled 
at  the  thought  of  quitting  her  to  go  for  more  ;  and,  as 
well  as  I  could,  entreated  her  not  to  go  away  before 
my  return.  As  soon  as  she  understood  what  I  signi- 
fied to  her,  she  sat  down  with  her  arms  across ; 
leaning  her  head  against  the  wall,  to  assure  me  she 
would  not  stir. 

"  I  took  my  boat,  net,  and  water-cask,  as  usual, 
desirous  of  bringing  her  home  a  ffesh-fish  dinner ;  and 
succeeded  so  well  as  to  catch  enough  for  several 
meals  and  to  spare.  What  remained  I  salted,  and 
found  that  she  liked  that  better  than  the  fresh,  after  a 
few  days'  salting ;  though  she  did  not  so  well  approve 
of  that  I  had  formerly  pickled  and  dried. 

"  Thus  we  spent  the  remainder  of  the  winter 
together,  till  the  days  began  to  be  light  enough  for  me 
to  walk  abroad  a  little  in  the  middle  of  them  ;  for  I 
was  now  under  no  apprehensions  of  her  leaving  me, 
as  she  had  before  this  time  many  opportunities  of 
doing  so,  but  never  attempted  it. 

"  I  must  here  make  one  reflection  upon  our  conduct, 
which  you  will  almost  think  incredible  ;  namely,  that 
we  two,  of  different  sexes,  fully  inflamed  with  love  to 
each  other,  and  no  outward  obstacle  to  prevent  our 
wishes,  should  have  been  together  under  the  same 
roof  for  five  months,  conversing  together  from  morn- 
ing till  night  (for  by  this  time  she  pretty  well  under- 
stood English,  and  I  her  language),  and  yet  I  should 
never  have  clasped  her  in  my  arms,  or  have  shown 


PETER   WILKINS   AND   THE   FLYING   WOMEN.       269 

any  farther  feelings  to  her  than  what  the  deference  I 
all  along  paid  her  could  give  her  room  to  surmise. 
Nay,  I  can  affirm  that  I  did  not  even  then  know  that 
the  covering  she  wore  was  not  the  work  of  art,  but  the 
work  of  nature  ;  for  I  really  took  it  for  silk.  Indeed, 
the  modesty  of  her  carriage  and  sweetness  of  her 
behavior  to  me  had  struck  into  me  such  a  dread  of 
offending  her,  that,  though  nothing  upon  earth  could 
be  more  capable  of  exciting  passion  than  her  charms, 
I  could  have  died  rather  than  have  attempted  to  salute 
her,  only  without  a6tual  invitation. 

"  When  the  weatlier  cleared  up  a  little,  by  the 
lengthening  of  daylight,  I  took  courage  one  afternoon 
to  invite  her  to  walk  with  me  to  the  lake ;  but  she 
sweetly  excused  herself  from  it,  whilst  there  was  such 
a  glare  of  light ;  but  told  me,  if  I  would  not  go  out  of 
the  wood,  she  would  accompany  me  :  so  we  agreed  to 
take  a  turn  only  there.  I  first  went  myself  over  the 
stile  of  the  door,  and,  taking  her  in  my  arms,  lifted  her 
over.  But,  even  when  I  had  her  in  this  manner,  I 
knew  not  what  to  make  of  her  clothing,  it  sat  so  true 
and  close ;  but  I  begged  she  would  let  me  know  of 
what  her  garment  was  made.  She  smiled,  and  asked 
me  if  mine  was  not  the  same  under  my  jacket.  '  No, 
lady,'  answered  I :  '  I  have  nothing  but  skin  under  my 
clothes.'  —  'Why,  what  do  you  mean?'  she  replied 
somewhat  tartly  ;  '  but  indeed  I  was  afraid  something 
was  the  matter,  by  that  nasty  covering  you  wear,  that 
you  might  not  be  seen.  Are  not  you  a  ghonmV  — 
'Yes,  fair  creature!'  —  'Then,'  continued  she,  'I  am 
afraid  you  must  have  been  a  very  bad  glumm,  and 
have  been  crashee^  which  I  should  be  very  sorry  to 


2>-o  THE    SEER. 


hear.'  I  replied,  I  hoped  my  faults  had  not  exceeded 
other  men's:  but  I  had  suffered  abundance  of  hard- 
ships in  my  time ;  and  that  at  last  Providence  having 
settled  me  in  this  spot,  from"  whence  I  had  no  prospeA 
of  ever  departing,  it  was  none  of  the  least  of  its  mer- 
cies to  bring  to  my  knowledge  and  company  the  most 
exquisite  piece  of  all  his  works  in  her,  which  I  should 
acknowledge  as  long  as  I  lived.  She  was  surprised  at 
this  discourse,  and  said,  'Have  not  you  the  same 
prospea  that  I  or  any  other  person  has  of  departing  ? 
You  don't  do  well ;  and  really  I  fear  you  are  slit,  or 
you  would  not  wear  this  nasty  cumbersome  coat  (tak- 
ing hold  of  my  jacket-sleeve),  if  you  were  not  afraid 
of  showing  the  signs  of  a  bad  life  upon  your  natural 
clothing.' 

"  I  could  not  for  my  heart  imagine  what  way  there 
was  to  get  out  of  my  dominions :  and  as  to  my  jacket, 
I  confess  she  made  me  blush ;  and,  but  for  shame,  I 
would  have  stripped  to  my  skin  to  have  satisfied  her. 
'But,  madam,'  said  I,  'pray,  pardon  me;  for  you 
really  are  mistaken :  I  have  examined  every  nook  and 
corner  of  this  island,  and  can  find  no  possible  outlet.'  — 
'Why,'  replied  she,  'what  outlets  do  you  want?  If 
you  are  not  slit,  is  not  the  air  open  to  you  as  well  as 
other  people?  I  tell  you,  sir,  I  fear  you  have  been  slit 
for  your  crimes ;  and  though  you  have  been  so  good  to 
me,  that  I  can't  help  loving  you  heartily  for  it,  yet,  if  I 
thought  you  had  been  slit,  I  would  not  stay  a  moment 
longer  with  you,  though  it  should  break  my  heart  to 
leave  you.' 

"I  found  myself  now  in  a  strange  quandar)'-,  —  long- 
ing  to   know  what    she    meant   by  being    slit.     But, 


PETEIl    VriLKIXS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN.       2/1 

seeing  her  look  a  little  angrily  upon  me,  I  said,  '  Pray, 
madam,  don't  be  offended  if  I  take  the  liberty  to  ask 
you  what  you  mean  by  the  word  crasJiec^  so  often 
repeated  by  you  ;  for  I  am  an  utter  stranger  to  what 
you  mean  by  it.'  —  'Sir,'  replied  she,  'pray,  answer 
me  first  how  you  came  here.'  — '  Madam,'  i^eplied  I, 
'  if  you  will  please  to  take  a  walk  to  the  verge  of  the 
wood,  I  will  show  you  the  very  passage.'  —  'Well,' 
replied  she,  '  now  this  odious  dazzle  of  light  is  les- 
sened, I  don't  care  if  I  do  go  with  you.' 

"When  we  came  far  enough  to  see  the  bridge, — 
'  There,  madam,'  said  I,  '  there  is  my  entrance,  where 
the  sea  poui^s  into  this  lake  from  yonder  cavern.'  — '  It 
is  not  possible,'  answered  she  :  '  this  is  another  untruth  ; 
and  as  I  see  you  would  deceive  me,  and  are  not  to  be 
believed,  farewell !  I  must  be  gone.  But,  hold !  let 
me  ask  you  one  thing  more  ;  that  is,  by  what  means 
did  you  come  through  that  cavern?  You  could  not 
have  used  to  come  over  the  rock.'  — '  Bless  me,  mad- 
am ! '  said  I :  'do  you  think  I  and  my  boat  could  fly? 
Come  over  the  rock,  did  you  say  ?  No,  inadam  :  I 
sailed  from  the  great  sea,  in  my  boat,  through  that 
cavern,  into  this  very  lake.'  — '  What  do  you  mean  by 
your  boat? '  said  she  :  '  you  seem  to  make  two  things  of 
your  boat  you  saileu  wicii  and  yourself.'  —  'I  do  so,' 
replied  I :  '  for  I  take  myself  to  be  good  flesh  and 
blood  ;  but  my  boat  is  made  of  wood  and  other  mate- 
rials.'—  'Is  it  so?  And  pray  where  is  this  boat  that 
is  made  of  wood  and  other  materials?  under  your 
jacket?  '  — '  Lord,  madam  ! '  said  I :  '  what !  put  a  boat 
under  my  jacket !  No,  madam  :  my  boat  is  in  the 
lake.'  — '  What,    more    untruths  ! '    said    she.       '  No, 


272 


THE    SEER. 


madam,'  I  replied :  '  if  you  would  be  satisfied  of  what 
I  say  (every  word  of  which  is  as  tme  as  that  my  boat 
now  is  in  the  lake),  pray  walk  with  me  thither,  and 
make  your  own  eyes  judges  what  sincerity  I  speak 
with.'  To  tliis  she  agreed,  it  growing  dusky ;  but 
assured  me,  if  I  did  not  give  her  good  satisfaction,  I 
should  see  her  no  more. 

"We  arrived  at  the  lake;  and  going  to  my  wet- 
dock,  '  Now,  madam,  pray  satisfy  yourself  whether  I 
spoke  true  or  no.'  She  looked  at  my  boat,  but  could 
not  yet  frame  a  proper  notion  of  it  till  I  stepped  into 
it,  and,  pushing  from  the  shore,  took  the  oars  in  my 
hand,  and  sailed  along  the  lake  by  her  as  she  walked 
on  the  shore.  At  last  she  seemed  so  well  reconciled 
to  me  and  my  boat,  tliat  she  desired  I  would  take  her 
in.  I  immediately  did  so,  and  we  sailed  a  good  way ; 
and,  as  we  retm-ned  to  my  dock,  I  described  to  her 
how  I  procured  the  water  we  drank,  and  brought  it  to 
the  shore  in  that  vessel. 

" '  Well,'  said  she,  'I  have  sailed,  as  you  call  it,  many 
a  mile  in  my  lifetime,  but  never  in  such  a  thing  as 
this.  I  own  it  will  serve,  where  one  has  a  great  many 
things  to  carry  from  place  to  place  ;  but  to  be  laboring 
thus,  when  one  intends  pleasure  in  sailing,  is  in  my 
mind  most  ridiculous.'  — '  Why,  pray,  madam,  how 
would  you  have  me  sail?  for  getting  into  the  boat 
only  will  not  carry  us  this  way  or  that,  without  using 
some  force.'  —  'But,  pray,  where  did  you  get  this 
boat,  as  you  call  it?'  —  'O  madam!'  I  ansvv'ered, 
'  that  is  too  long  a  story  to  begin  upon  now ;  but  I 
will  make  a  faithful  relation  of  all  to  yovi  ^^•hen  we 
get  home' 


PETER    WILKINS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN.       273 

"  I  now  perceived,  and  wondered  at  it,  that,  the 
later  it  grew,  the  moi'e  agreeable  it  seemed  to  her ;  * 
and,  as  I  had  now  brought  her  into  a  good  humor 
again  by  seeing  and  sailing  in  my  boat,  I  was  not 
willing  to  prevent  its  increase.  I  told  her,  if  she 
pleased,  we  would  land  ;  and,  when  I  had  docked  my 
boat,  I  would  accompany  her  where  and  as  long  as 
she  liked.  As  we  talked  and  walked  by  the  lake,  she 
made  a  little  run  before  me,  and  sprung  into  it. 
Perceiving  this,  I  cried  out ;  whereupon  she  merrily 
called  on  me  to  follow  her.  The  light  was  then  so 
diin  as  prevented  my  having  more  than  a  confused 
sight  of  her  when  she  jumped  in  ;  and,  looking  earnest- 
ly after  her,  I  could  discern  nothing  more  than  a  small 
boat  on  the  water,  which  skimmed  along  at  so  great  a 
rate,  that  I  almost  lost  sight  of  it  presently :  but,  run- 
ning along  the  shore  for  fear  of  losing  her,  I  met  her 
gravely  walking  to  meet  me,  and  then  had  entirely 
lost  sight  of  the  boat  upon  the  lake.  '  This,'  accosting 
me  with  a  smile,  '  is  my  way  of  sailing,  which,  I  per- 
ceive by  the  fright  you  were  in,  you  were  altogether 
unacquainted  with  ;  and,  as  you  tell  me  you  came  from 
so  many  thousand  miles  off,  it  is  possible  you  mav  be 
made  differently  f  -^""e  ;  and  I  suspedl  from  all  your 
discourse,  to  which  I  have  been  very  attentive,  it  is 
possible  you  may  no  more  be  able  to  fly  than  to  sail 
as  I  do.'  — '  No,  charming  creature  !  that  I  cannot,  I'll 
assure  you.'  She  then  stei^ped  to  the  edge  of  the  lake, 
for  the  advantage  of  a  descent  before,  sprung  up  into 

*  Peter  subsequently'  learns,  that,  in  the  regions  of  the  Flyini^  People, 
it  is  always  twilight,  which  makes  them  tender-eyed  in  places  where  tho 
day  is  brighter. 


274  '^^^    SEER. 

the  ail*,  and  away  she  went,  farther  than   my  eyes 
could  follow  her. 

"  I  was  quite  astonished  :  but  I  had  very  little  time 
for  refledlion ;  for,  in  a  few  minutes  after,  she  alighted 
just  by  me  on  her  feet. 

"  Her  return,  as  she  plainly  saw,  filled  nie  with  a 
transport  not  to  be  concealed,  and  which,  as  she  after- 
wards told  me,  was  very  agreeable  to  her.  Indeed,  I 
was  some  moments  in  such  an  agitation  of  mind  from 
these  unparalleled  incidents,  that  I  was  like  one  thun- 
der-struck ;  but  coming  presentl}^  to  myself,  and  clasp- 
ing her  in  my  arms  with  as  much  love  and  passion  as 
I  was  capable  of  expressing,  '  Are  you  returned  again, 
kind  angel ! '  said  I,  '  to  bless  a  wretch  who  can  only 
be  happy  in  adoring  you?  Can  it  be,  that  you,  who 
have  so  many  advantages  over  me,  should  quit  all  the 
pleasures  that  Natin-e  has  formed  you  for,  and  all  your 
friends  and  relations,  to  take  an  asylum  in  my  arms? 
But  I  here  make  you  a  tender  of  all  I  am  able  to 
bestow,  —  my  love  and  constancy.'  —  'Come,  come,'  re- 
plied she, '  no  more  raptures.  I  find  you  are  a  worthier 
man  than  I  thought  I  had  reason  to  take  you  for ;  and 
I  beg  your  pardon  for  my  disti'ust,  whilst  I  was  igno- 
rant of  your  imperfeftions :  but  now  I  verily  believe 
all  you  have  said  is  true  ;  and  I  promise  you,  as  you 
have  seemed  so  much  to  delight  in  me,  I  will  never 
quit  you,  till  death,  or  some  other  fatal  accident,  shall 
part  us.  But  we  will  now,  if  you  please,  go  home : 
for  I  know  you  have  been  for  some  time  uneasy  in 
this  gloom,  though  agreeable  to  me  ;  for,  giving  my 
eyes  the  pleasure  of  looking  eagerly  on  you,  it  conceals 
my  blushes  from  vour  sio-ht.' 


PETER    WILKINS    AND    THE    FLYING    WOMEN.       275 

"  In  this  manner,  exchanging  mutual  endearments 
and  soft  speeches,  hand  in  hand,  we  arrived  at  the 
grotto." 

The  author  here  proceeds  to  give  an  account  of  his 
nuptials ;  which,  though  given  in  the  veiy  best  taste 
of  the  time,  and  evincing  great  purity,  as  well  as  plea- 
surability  of  nature,  is  better  left  in  its  place  than 
brought  forward  out  of  the  circumstances  which  in- 
vest it. 

But  are  not  such  of  our  readers,  as  did  not  know  her 
befoi'e,  glad  of  their  new  acquaintance  ? 


276 


ENGLISH  AND   FRENCH   FEMALES. 
TTieir  Costumes  and  Bearing. 


HE  writer  of  the  following  letter  Is  very  un- 
t^iiS^I  merciful  on  the  ribbons,  plumes,  and  other 
enormities  of  the  present  mode  of  dress  ;  and, 
having  torn  these  to  pieces,  proceeds  to  rend  away 
veils  and  gowns,  and  fall  plumb  down  upon  the  pretty 
feet  of  the  wearers,  and  their  mode  of  walking :  but 
when  our  fair  readers  see  what  he  says  of  their  faces, 
and  call  to  mind  how  Momus  found  fault  with  the 
steps  of  Venus  herself,  we  trust  they  will  forgive  his 
fury  for  the  sake  of  his  love,  and  consider  whether  so 
fond  an  indignation  does  not  contain  something  worth 
their  reflexion. 

FKENCH   LADIES   VERSUS   ENGLISH. 
To  the  Editor. 

Sir,  —  It  is  Mrs.  Gore,  I  think,  in  one  of  her  late  nov- 
els, who  says  that  ninety-nine  English  women  out  of 
a  hundred  dress  infinitely  worse  than  as  many  French ; 
but  that  the  hundredth  dresses  with  a  neatness,  ele- 
gance, and  propriety  which  is  not  to  be  paralleled  on 
the  other  side  of  the  channel.  On  my  relating  this 
to  a  fair  relation  of  mine,  she  replied,  "  Very  true  : 
only  I  never  saw  that  hundredth.'''  Nor  has  any  one 
else.     Without  exception,  the  English  women  wear 


EXGI.ISH    AND    FRENCH    FEMALKS.  277 

tlie  prettiest  faces  and  the  ugliest  dresses  of  any  in  the 
known  world.  A  Hottentot  hangs  her  sheep  -  skin 
car  OSS  on  her  shoulders  with  more  effed; ;  and  it  is 
from  what  I  see  every  day  of  my  life  that  I  come  to 
this  conclusion. 

I  was  the  other  day  at  a  large  shop  at  tlie  west  end 
of  the  town,  where,  if  an3where,  we  may  expedl  to 
meet  with  favorable  specimens  of  our  countrywomen. 
Not  a  bit  of  it !  There  were  a  couple  of  French  ladies 
there,  dressed  smartly  and  tidily,  one  in  blue  and  the 
other  in  rose-colored  silk,  with  snug  little  scutty  bon- 
nets, guiltless  of  tawdry  ribbons  or  dingy  plumes  ;  and 
great  was  their  astonishment  at  beholding  the  nonde- 
script figures  which  ever  and  anon  passed  by.  First 
came  gliding  out  of  her  carriage,  with  a  languishing 
air,  a  young  miss,  all  ringlets  down  to  the  knees ; 
feathers  drooping  on  one  side  of  her  bonnet,  flowers 
on  the  other,  and  an  immense  Brussels  veil  (or  some 
such  ti'ash)  hanging  behind  ;  her  gown  pinned  to  her 
back,  like  rags  on  a  Guy  Fawkes ;  a  large  warming- 
pan  of  a  watch,  secured  round  her  neck  by  as  many 
chains  —  gold,  silver,  and  pinchbeck  —  as  an  Italian 
brigand  ;  with  divers  other  articles,  as  handkerchiefs, 
boas,  &c.,  which,  however  costly  and  beautiful  indi- 
vidually, formed  all  together  an  unbecoming  and  cook- 
maidish  whole.  Then  came  the  tsvo  old  ladies ;  but 
I  give  tJiein  up,  as  too  far  gone  in  their  evil  wa^-s  of 
dressing  to  hope  for  amelioration.  Ditto  for  tlie 
widows  in  their  hideous  black  bonnets,  with  a  foot 
and  a  half  of  black  crape  tacked  to  each  side,  like 
wings  to  a  paper  kite  :  the  horned  caps  of  Edward 
the    Confessor    are    nothing    to    them.       The    French 


27S  THE    SEER. 

damsels,  alluded  to  above,  eyed  one  or  two  of  these 
jnac/iines  (they  can  go  by  no  other  name)  with  con- 
siderable attention,  as  if  doubting  the  sanity  of  the 
wearer. 

"  One  would  not,  sure,  be  frightful  when  one's  dead," 

says  Pope's  Nai'cissa.  I  might  address  a  similar  ques- 
tion to  English  widows  :  — 

"  One  would  not,  sure,  be  frightful  when  one  mourns." 

I  looked  from  one  end  to  the  other  of  the  crowded 
shop,  in  hopes  of  finding  some  happy  lady  to  retrieve 
the  honor  of  her  country ;  but  in  vain.  All  wore  the 
same  ngly  garment,  more  akin  to  a  night-shift  than  a 
gown  ;  the  same  warming-pan  watch  and  chains  ;  the 
same  fly-flapping  bonnet  with  bunches  of  ugly  ribbons. 
Altogether  they  formed  an  awkward  contrast  to  the 
"  tight,  reg'lar-built  French  craft,"  as  Mathews's  Tom 
Piper  calls  them.  This  time,  however,  it  was  the 
English  who  were  "  rigged  so  rum." 

And  then  their  walk !  O  quonda77t  Indicator ! 
quondam  Tatler !  quondam  and  present  lover  of  all 
that  is  good  and  graceful!  could  you  not  "indicate" 
to  our  English  ladies  the  way  to  walk?  In  what 
absurd  book  was  it  that  I  read  the  other  day  that 
French  women  walk  ill,  because,  from  the  want  of 
trottoirs  in  France,  they  get  a  habit  of  "picking" 
with  one  foot,  which  gave  a  jerking  air  to  the  gait? 
The  aristocratic  noodle  !  whose  female  relations  shuffle 
about  on  smooth  pavements,  till  they  forget  how  to 
walk  at  all !  I  would  not  have  them  cross  my  grass- 
plat  for  the  world.     They  would  decapitate  the  very 


ENGLISH   AND    FRENCH    FEMALES.  279 

daisies.  How  infinitely  superior  is  the  French  wo- 
man's brisk,  springy  step  (albeit  caused  by  a  most 
plebeian  and  un-English  want  of  causeways)  to  the 
languid,  sauntering  gait  of  most  English  dames  !  Na- 
ture teaches  the  one :  the  drill-sergeant  can  do  noth- 
ing with  the  other.  I  wonder  how  they  walked  in  the 
days  of  Charles  11.  Surely  Nell  Gwynne  and  my 
Lady  Castlemaine  walked  well ;  and,  if  they  did,  they 
walked  differently  from  what  they  do  now. 

I  hope  that  some  good  creature  like  the  "  London 
Journalist,"  who  believes  in  the  unprovability  of  all 
tilings,  will  take  up  this  subje6l.  A  word  from  him 
would  set  English  ladies  upon  trying,  at  least,  to 
improve  both  in  dressing  and  walking.  There  are 
models  enough :  look  at  the  French,  the  Spanish,  the 
Italians.  They  have  not  better  opportunities  for  dress- 
ing well  than  we,  and  yet  they  beat  us  hollow.  Why 
can't  we  have  a  basqtiina  or  nia7itilla  as  well  as  any 
one  else?     Let  us  endeavor. 

Above  all,  let  no  one  suppose  that  the  writer  of 

these  desultory  remarks  is  in  the  least  deficient  in  love 

and  duty  to  his  fair  countrywomen.     If  he  offends  any 

of  them,  they  must  imagine  that  it  has  been  caused  by 

excess  of  zeal  for  their  interests.     Bless  their  bonnie 

fixces !  —  if  we  could  screw  English  heads  on  French 

figures,  what  women  there  would  be,  sure/}// 

An  Old  Cront. 
July  7,  1834. 

To  enter  properly  into  this  subje(5l,  however  trifling 
it  may  appear  (as  indeed  is  the  case  with  almost  every 
subject  so  called),  would  be  to  open  a  wide  field  of 


2So  THE    SEER. 

investigation  into  morals,  laws,  climates,  &c.  Per- 
haps climate  alone,  by  reason  of  the  variety  of  habits 
it  generates  in  consequence  of  its  various  heats,  colds, 
and  otlier  influences,  w^ill  ever  prevent  an  entire 
similarity  of  manners,  whatever  may  be  the  approxi- 
mation of  opinion  ;  but  taking  for  granted,  as  is  not 
unreasonable,  that  the  pi'ogress  of  knowledge  and 
intercourse  will  not  be  without  its  efledl  in  bringing 
the  customs  of  civilized  countries  nearer  to  one  an- 
other, and  that  each  will  be  for  availing  itself  of  what 
is  best  and  pleasantest  amongst  its  neighbors,  it  be- 
comes worth  anybody's  while  to  consider  in  what 
respedl  it  is  advisable  or  otherwise  to  modify  the 
behavior  or  manners  accordingly.  We  can  say  little, 
from  personal  experience,  how  the  case  may  be  in  the 
present  instance  with  regard  to  French  manners.  We 
have  a  great  opinion  of  Mrs.  Gore,  both  as  a  general 
observer,  and  one  that  particularly  understands  what 
is  charming  in  her  own  sex.  On  the  other  hand,  from 
books,  and  from  a  readiness  to  be  pleased  with  those 
who  wish  to  please,  and  even  from  merely  having 
passed  through  France  in  our  way  from  another 
country,  we  have  got  a  strong  impression,  that  the 
"  hundredth"  French  woman,  as  well  as  the  hundredth 
English  woman,  nay,  the  hundredth  Italian,  —  that  is 
to  say,  the  one  that  carries  the  requisite  graces,  the 
beau-ideal  of  any  country  to  its  height,  —  is  likely  to 
be  so  charming  a  person,  in  dress  and  every  thing  else, 
to  her  own  countrymen,  that  what  Mrs.  Gore  says  of 
the  perfectly  dressing  English  woman  is  precisely  the 
same  thing  that  would  be  said  of  the  perfecSlly  dress- 
ing French  woman  by  the  French,  and  of  her  Italian 


E>fGLI3II    AND    FREXCH    FEMALES.  28 1 

counterpart  by  the  Italians.  It  is  impossible,  unless 
we  are  half-foreigners,  or  unless  our  own  nation  is 
altogether  of  an  inferior  grade  (and  then  perhaps  our 
prejudices  and  irritation  would  render  it  equally  so), 
to  get  rid  of  some  one  point  of  national  preference  in 
forming  judgments  of  this  kind.  Our  friend,  the  "  Old 
Crony,"  we  see,  for  all  his  connoisseurship  and  crony- 
ism, —  his  regard  for  a  certain  piquancy  of  perfedtion 
in  the  French  dress  and  walk,  and  his  wish  that  his  fair 
counti-ywomen  would  "  take  steps"  after  their  fashion, 
—  cannot  get  rid  of  the  preference  in  which  he  was 
brought  up  for  the  beauty  of  the  English  countenance. 
We  have  a  similar  feeling  in  fovor  even  of  a  certain 
subjected  manner,  a  bending  gentleness,  (how  shall 
we  term  it?)  in  the  bearing  of  the  sweetest  of  our 
counti-j^vomen,  not  exactly  connedted  with  decision  of 
step,  nor  perhaps  with  variety  of  harmony ;  for  all 
pleasures  run  into  one  another,  if  they  are  of  a  right 
sort,  and  the  ground  of  them  true.  Look  at  the  paint- 
ings of  the  French,  and  you  will  find  in  like  manner 
that  their  ideal  of  a  face,  let  them  try  to  universalize  it 
as  they  can,  is  a  French  one  ;  and  so  it  is  with  tlie 
Spanish  and  Italian  paintings  and  with  the  Greek 
statues.  The  merry  African  girls  shriek  with  horror 
when  they  first  look  upon  a  white  traveller.  Their 
notion  of  a  beautiful  complexion  is  a  skin  shining  like 
Warren's  blacking. 

It  is  proper  to  understand  in  any  question,  great  or 
small,  the  premises  from  which  we  set  out,  the  point 
which  is  required.  In  the  dress  and  walk  of  females, 
as  in  all  other  matters  in  which  they  are  concerned, 
the  point  of  perfection,  we  conceive,  is  that  which 
VOL.  I.  24 


282  THE    SEER. 

shall  give  us  the  best  possible  idea  of  perfedl  woman- 
hood. Vv  e  are  not  to  consider  the  dress  by  itself,  nor 
the  walk  by  itself;  but  as  the  dress  and  the  walk  of 
the  best  and  pleasantest  woman,  and  how  far,  there- 
fore, it  does  her  justice.  This  produces  the  considera- 
tion of  what  we  look  upon  as  a  perfect  female  :  people 
will  vary  in  tlieir  opinions  on  this  head  ;  and  hence 
even  so  easy  a  looking  question  as  the  one  before  us 
becomes  invested  with  difficulties.  The  opinion  will 
depend  greatly  on  the  temperament  as  well  as  the 
understanding  of  the  judge.  Our  correspondent,  for 
instance,  is  evidently  a  lively  fellow,  old  or  young,  and 
given  a  good  deal  rather  to  the  material  than  to  the 
spiritual ;  and  hence  his  notion  of  perfection  tends 
towards  a  union  of  the  trim  and  the  lively,  the  impul- 
sive, and  yet  withal  to  the  self-possessed.  He  is  one, 
we  conceive,  who  would  "  have  no  nonsense,"  as  the 
phrase  is,  in  his  opinion  of  the  possible  or  desirable  ; 
and  who  is  in  no  danger  of  the  perils  either  of 
sentimentality  or  sentiment ;  either  of  an  affedted 
refinement  of  feeling,  or  any  very  serious  demand  of 
any  sort.  He  is  not  for  bringing  into  the  walks  of 
publicity,  male  or  female,  the  notions  of  sequestered 
imaginations,  nor  to  have  women  glancing  and  bashful 
like  fawns.  He  is  for  having  all  things  tight  and 
convenient  as  a  dressing-case  ;  "  neat  as  imported  ; " 
polished,  piquant,  well  packed ;  and  with  no  more 
flowers  upon  it  than  ser\'e  to  give  a  hint  of  the  smart 
pungency  within,  like  a  bottle  of  attar  of  roses,  or 
Jleur-d'ephze.  We  do  not  quarrel  with  him.  Chacun 
a  so7t  gout.,  —  "Every  man  to  his  taste."  Nay,  his 
taste  is  our  own,  as  for  as  concerns  the  improvement 


EXGI.ISII    AND    FRENCH    FEMALES.  2S3 

of  female  manners  in  ordinary.  We  do  think  that  the 
general  style  of  female  English  dressing  and  walking 
would  be  benefited  by  an  inoculation  of  that  which 
we  conceive  him  to  recommend.  We  have  no  pre- 
diledlion  in  favor  of  shuffling  and  shouldering  and 
lounging,  —  of  a  mere  moving  onwards  of  tlie  feet, 
and  an  absence  of  all  grace  and  self-possession.  We 
can  easily  believe,  that  the  French  women  surpass  the 
English  in  this  respe6t,  because  their  climate  is  live- 
lier, and  themselves  better  taught  and  respe6led. 
People  may  start  at  that  last  word  ;  but  there  is  no 
doubt  that  the  general  run  of  French  females  are 
better  taught,  and  therefore  more  respedled,  than  the 
same  number  of  English.  They  read  more,  they 
converse  more,  they  are  on  more  equal  terms  with  the 
other  sex  (as  they  ought  to  be)  ;  and  hence  the  other 
sex  have  more  value  for  their  opinions,  ay,  and  for 
their  persons :  for  the  more  sensible  a  woman  is, 
supposing  her  not  to  be  masculine,  the  more  attradlive 
she  is  in  her  proportionate  power  to  entertain.  But 
whether  it  is  that  we  are  English,  or  fonder  of  poetry 
in  its  higher  sense  than  of  ve7's  de  societe  or  the  poetry 
of  polite  life,  we  cannot  help  feeling  a  prejudice  in 
favor  of  Mrs.  Gore's  notion  about  the  "hundredth" 
English  woman;  though  perhaps  the  "hundredth" 
French  woman,  if  we  could  see  her,  or  the  hun- 
dredth Italian  or  Spanish  woman,  would  surpass  all 
others,  by  dint  of  combining  the  sort  of  private  man- 
ner, which  we  have  in  our  eye,  v\^ith  some  exquisite 
implication  of  a  fitness  for  general  intercourse,  which 
we  have  never  yet  met  Avith. 

Meantime,  we  repeat  that  we  give  up  to  our  corre- 


2i>4 


THE    SEER. 


spondent's  vituperations  the  gait  of  English  females  in 
general,  and  their  dress  also ;  though  it  is  a  little  hard 
in  him  to  praise  the  smallness  of  the  French  bonnet  at 
the  expense  of  the  largeness  of  the  English,  when  it  is 
recolleded  that  the  latter  are  copied  from  France,  and 
that  our  fair  countrywomen  were  ridiculed,  on  their 
first  visit  there  after  the  war,  for  the  very  reverse 
appearance.  But  it  is  to  the  spirit  of  our  mode  of 
dressing  and  walking  that  we  objedl ;  and  both  are 
unfit,  either  for  the  private  or  public  "walk"  of  life  ; 
because  both  are  alike  untaught  and  unpleasing, — 
alike  indicative  of  minds  not  properly  cultivated,  and 
of  habitual  feelings  that  do  not  care  to  be  agreeable. 
The  walk  is  a  saunter  or  shuffle,  and  the  dress  a  lump  ; 
or,  if  not  a  lump  throughout,  it  is  a  lump  at  both  ends, 
with  a  horrible  pinch  in  the  middle.  A  tight-laced 
English  woman  is  thus,  from  head  to  foot,  a  most 
painful  sight :  her  best  notion  of  being  charming  is 
confined  to  three  inches  of  ill-used  ribs  and  liver ; 
while  her  head  is  either  grossly  ignorant  of  the  harm 
she  is  doing  herself,  or  her  heart  more  deplorably 
careless  of  the  consequences  to  her  offspring. 

Are  we  of  opinion,  then,  that  the  dress  and  walk  of 
English  women  would  be  bettered,  generally  speaking, 
by  taking  the  advice  of  our  correspondent?  Most 
certainly  we  are ;  and  for  this  reason,  that  there  is 
soi7ie  sense  of  grace,  at  all  events,  in  the  attire  and 
bearing  of  the  females  of  the  Continent ;  some  evi- 
dence of  mind,  and  some  testimony  to  the  proper 
claims  of  the  person  ;  whereas  the  only  idea  in  the 
heads  of  the  majority  with  us  is  that  of  being  in 
fiishion  merely  because  it  is  the  foshion,  or  of  dressing 


ENGLISH    AND    FRENCH   FEMALES.  2o^ 

in  a  manner  to  show  how  much  they  can  afford. 
This  is  partly  owing,  no  doubt,  to  our  being  a  com- 
mercial people,  and  also  to  the  struggles  which  every- 
body has  been  making  for  the  last  forty  years  to  seem 
richer  than  they  are,  some  for  the  sake  of  concealing 
how  they  have  decreased  in  means,  and  others  to  show 
how  they  have  risen  ;  but  a  nation  may  be  commercial, 
and  yet  have  a  true  taste.  The  Florentines  had  it, 
when  they  were  at  once  the  leaders  of  trade  and  of 
the  fine  arts,  in  the  time  of  Lorenzo  de  Medici.  It  is 
to  our  fine  arts  and  our  increasing  knowledge  that  we 
ourselves  must  look  to  improvement  even  in  dress,  in 
defiiult  of  being  impelled  to  it  by  greater  liveliness  of 
spirit  or  a  more  convenient  climate.  We  shall  then 
learn  to  oppose  even  the  climate  better,  and  to  furnish 
it  with  the  grace  and  color  which  it  wants.  In  France, 
the  better  temperature  of  the  atmosphere,  as  well  as 
intelle6lual  and  moral  causes,  impels  people  to  a 
livelier  and  happier  way  of  walking.  They  have  no 
reason  to  look  as  if  they  were  uncomfortable.  In  the 
south  of  Europe,  where  every  thing  respires  animal 
sensibility,  and  love  and  music  divide  the  time  with 
business,  the  most  unaflefted  people  acquire  an  appa- 
rent consciousness  and  spring  in  the  gait,  which  in 
England  would  be  thought  ostentatious.  It  gave  no 
such  idea  to  the  severe  and  simple  Dante,  when  (in 
the  poetical  spirit  of  the  image,  and  not  of  course  in 
the  letter)  he  praised  his  mistress  for  moving  along 
like  "a  peacock"  and  a  "crane." 

"  Soave  a  guisa  va  di  un  bel  pavone, 
Diritta  sopra  se  come  una  grue." 


2S6  THE    SEER. 

"  Sweetly  she  goes,  like  the  bright  peacock ;  strait 
Above  herself,  like  to  the  lady  crane." 

Petrarch,  speaking  of  Laura,  does  not  venture  upon 
these  primeval  images  ;  but  still  he  shows  how  much 
he  thought  of  the  beauty  of  a  woman's  steps.  Laura, 
too,  was  a  French  woman,  not  an  Italian  ;  and  proba- 
bly had  a  different  kind  of  walk.  Petrarch  expresses 
the  moral  graces  of  it. 

•'  Non  era  1'  andar  suo  cosa  mortale, 
Ma  d'  angelica  forma." 
"  Her  walk  was  like  no  mortal  tiling,  but  shaped 
After  an  angel's." 

In  English  poetry,  the  lover  speaks  with  the  usual 
enthusiasm  of  his  mistress's  eyes  and  lips,  &c. ;  but  he 
scarcelv  ever  mentions  her  walk.  The  fa6l  is  re- 
markable, and  the  reason  too  obvious.  The  walk  is 
not  worth  mention.  Italian  and  (we  believe)  Spanish 
poetry  abound  with  the  reverse.  Milton,  deeply 
iinbued  with  the  Italian,  as  well  as  with  his  own 
perceptions  of  beauty,  as  a  great  poet,  did  not  forget, 
in  his  description  of  Eve,  to  say,  that  — 

"  Grace  teas  in  all  her  steps ;  heaven  in  her  eye ; 
In  every  gesture,  dignity  and  love." 

This  moving  and  gesticulating  beauty  was  not 
English  ;  at  least,  she  is  not  the  English  woman  of  our 
days.  Mrs.  Hutchinson,  perhaps,  might  have  been 
such  a  woman ;  or  the  ladies  of  the  Bridgewater 
Family,  for  whom  he  wrote  his  Comus.  In  Virgil, 
^neas  is  not  aware  that  his  mother  Venus  has  been 
speaking  with  him  in  the  guise  of  a  wood-nymph,  till 
she  begins  to  move  awa}' :  the  "divinity"  then  be- 
came apparent. 


EXOIJSH    AND    FRE^XII    FIIMAI-ES.  zS/ 

"  Et  vera  incessfi  patuit  dea." 

"And  by  her  walk  the  Queen  of  Love  is  known." 

Dkyden. 

The  women  of  Spain  and  Spanish  America  are 
celebrated  throughout  the  world  for  the  elegance  of 
their  walking,  and  for  the  way  in  which  they  carry 
their  veil,  or  jnantilla,  as  alluded  to  by  our  correspond- 
ent. Knowing  it  only  from  books,  we  cannot  say 
precisely  in  what  the  beauty  of  their  walk  consists  ; 
but  we  take  it  to  be  something  between  stateliness  and 
vivacity, — between  a  consciousness  of  being  admired, 
and  that  grace  which  is  natural  to  any  human  being 
who  is  well  made,  till  art  or  diffidence  spoils  it.  It  is 
the  perfection,  we  doubt  not,  of  animal  elegance. 
We  have  an  English  doubt,  whether  we  should  not 
require  an  addition  or  modification  of  something,  not 
indeed  diffident,  but  perhaps  not  quite  so  confident,  — 
something  which,  to  the  perfedlion  of  animal  elegance, 
should  add  that  of  intelledual  and  moral  refinement, 
and  a  security  from  the  chances  of  coarseness  and 
violence.  But  all  these  are  -matters  of  breeding  and 
bringing-up,  —  ay,  of  "birth,  parentage,  and  educa- 
tion ; "  and  we  should  be  grateful  when  we  can  get  any 
one  of  them.  Better  have  even  a  good  walk  than 
nothing  ;  for  there  is  some  refinement  in  it,  and  moral 
refinement  too,  though  we  may  not  always  think  the 
epithet  very  applicable  to  the  possessor.  Good  walk- 
ing and  good  dressing,  truly  so  called,  are  ahke 
valuable,  only  inasmuch  as  they  afibrd  some  external 
evidence,  however  slight,  of  a  disposition  to  orderli- 
ness and  harmony  in  the  mind  within,  —  of  shapeliness 
and  grace  in  the  habitual  movements  of  the  soul. 


2S8 


ENGLISH  MALE   COSTUME. 
Suggested  by  Mr.  Planch'e's  Book  on  Costutne. 

R.  PLANCHl&'S  book,  besides  being  sensi- 
bly and  amusingly  written,  in  a  clear,  unaf- 
te<5led  style,  contains  more  than  would  be 
expected  from  its  title.  It  narrates  the  military  as 
well  as  civil  history  of  British  costume,  giving  us  not 
only  the  softer  vicissitudes  of  silks  and  satins,  but 
ringing  the  changes  of  helms,  hauberks,  and  swords, 
from  the  earliest  period  of  the  use  of  armor  till  the 
latest;  and  it  will  set  the  public  right,  for  the  first 
time,  upon  some  hitherto  mistaken  points  of  character 
and  manners.  We  have  been  surprised,  for  instance, 
to  learn  that  our  "  naked  ancestors"  (as  we  supposed 
them),  the  ancient  Britons,  were  naked  only  when 
they  went  to  battle  ;  and  it  turns  out,  that  Richard  the 
Third,  instead  of  being  one  who  thought  himself — 

"  Not  made  to  court  an  amorous  looking-glass," 

was  a  dandy  in  his  dress,  and  as  particular  about  his 
wardrobe  and  coronation-gear  as  George  the  Fourth. 
This  trait  in  his  character  is  confirmative,  we  think,  of 
the  traditions  respeding  his  deformity  ;  men  who  are 
under  that  disadvantage  being  remarkable  either  for 
a  certain  nicety  and  superiority  of  taste,  moral  and 
personal,  if  their  dispositions  are  good,  or  for  all  sorts 


ENGLISH   MALE   COSTUME.  289 

of  mistakes  the  other  way,  under  the  reverse  predica- 
ment. Two  persons  of  the  greatest  natural  refinement 
we  ever  met  with  have  had  a  crook  in  the  shoulder. 
Richard  was  a  usurper,  a  man  of  craft  and  violence ; 
and  his  jealousy  of  the  respeft  of  his  fellow-men  took 
the  unhappier  and  more  glaring  turn.  He  thought 
to  overcome  them  with  his  fine  clothes  and  colors,  as 
he  had  done  with  his  tyranny.  Richard  partook,  it 
seems,  of  the  effeminate  voluptuousness  of  his  bi"other, 
Edward  the  Fourth,  as  Edward  partook  of  Richard's 
cruelty. 

Mr.  Planche  is  of  opinion  that  "  the  most  elegant 
and  pidliu-esque  costume  ever  worn  in  England  "  was 
that  of  the  reign  of  Charles  the  First,  commonly 
called  tlie  Vandyke  dress,  from  its  frequency  in  tlie 
portraits  of  that  artist.  The  dresses  of  few  periods, 
we  think,  surpass  those  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  times, 
and  of  some  of  the  Norman.  (See  the  engravings  in 
the  book,  at  pages  22,  103,  121,  and  127.)  Some  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon  ladies  were  dressed  with  almost  as 
elegant  a  simplicity  as  the  Greeks.  But  whatever  Mr. 
Planche  may  think  of  the  extreme  gallantry  and  pic- 
turesqueness  of  the  Vandyke  dress,  with  its  large  hat 
and  feathers,  its  cloak  and  rapier,  and  its  long 
breeches  meeting  the  tops  of  the  wide  boots,  its  supe- 
riority may  surely  be  at  least  contested  by  the  jewelled 
and  plumed  caps,  the  long  locks,  the  vests,  mantles, 
and  hose  of  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Seventh  ;  espe- 
cially if  we  recolledl  that  they  had  the  broad  hats  and 
feathers  too,  when  they  chose  to  wear  them,  and  that 
they  had  noi  the  "  peaked"  beard,  nor  a  steeple  crown 
to  the  hat.  (See  the  figures,  at  pages  220  and  222  ; 
VOL.  I.  25 


290  THE    SEER. 

and  imagine  them  put  into  as  gallant  bearing  as  those 
in  the  pictures  of  Vandyke.  See  also  the  portrait  of 
Henry  himself,  at  the  beginning  of  the  volume  ;  and 
the  cap,  cloak,  and  vest  of  the  Earl  of  Surrey,  the 
poet,  in  the  Holbein  portrait  of  him  in  Lodge's 
Illustrations.) 

It  is  a  curious  fa<5l,  that  good  taste  in  costume  has 
by  no  means  been  in  proportion  to  an  age's  refinement 
in  other  respefts.  Mere  utility  is  a  better  teacher 
than  mere  will  and  power  ;  and  fashions  in  dress  have 
generally  been  regulated  by  those  who  had  power, 
and  nothing  else.  Shakespeare's  age  was  that  of  rufis 
and  puffs  ;  Pope's,  that  of  the  most  execrable  of  all 
coats,  cocked-hats,  and  waistcoats,  —  lumpish,  formal, 
and  useless ;  a  miserable  affe6lation  of  ease  with  the 
most  ridiculous  buckram.  And  yet  the  costume  of 
part  of  George  the  Third's  reign  was  perhaps  worse, 
for  it  had  not  even  the  garnish  ;  it  was  the  extreme  of 
mechanical  dulness  :  and  the  women  had  preposterous 
tresses  of  curls  and  pomatum  on  their  head,  by  way 
of  setting  off"  the  extremity  of  dull  plainness  with  that 
of  dull  cajDrice.  For  the  hoop,  possibly,  something 
may  be  said,  not  as  a  dress,  nor  as  an  investment,  but 
as  an  enclosure.  It  did  not  seem  so  much  to  disfigure 
as  to  contain  the  wearer,  —  to  be  not  a  dress,  but  a 
gilding  shell.  The  dancers  at  Otaheite,  in  the  pictures 
to  Captain  Cook's  voyages,  have  some  such  lower 
houses  ;  and  look  well  in  them  for  the  same  reason. 
The  body  issued  from  the  hoop,  as  out  of  a  sea  of 
flounce  and  furbelow.  It  was  the  next  thing  to  a 
nymph  half  hidden  in  water.  The  arm  and  fan  re- 
posed upon  it  as  upon  a  cloud  or  a  moving  sphere  ; 


ENGLISH    MALE   COSTUME.  29 1 

the  fair  angel  looking  serene  and  superior  above  it. 
Thus  much  we  would  say  in  defence  of  the  hoop, 
properly  so  called,  when  it  was  in  its  perfe6lion,  large 
and  circular,  and  to  be  approached  like  a  "  hedge  of 
divinity,"  or  the  walls  of  Troy,  — 

"Pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of  glorious />e«/coa</" 

not  for  those  mashed  and  minor  shapes  of  the  phe- 
nomenon, which  degenerated  into  mere  appendages, 
panniers,  or  side  lumps,  and  reminded  you  of  nothing 
but  their  deformity.  But  it  was  always  a  thing  fantas- 
tic, and  fit  only  for  court  and  ceremony. 

Mr.  Planche  justly  cautions  one  generation  against 
lauerhingr  at  the  fashions  of  another.  He  advises  such 
ladies  as  would  "scream"  at  the  dresses  of  the  four- 
teenth or  even  eighteenth  centviry,  to  look  into  a 
fashionable  pocket-book  or  magazine  for  the  year  1815 
or  20,  and  then  candidly  compare  notes.  Appendages 
or  enclosures  are  one  thing  ;  positive,  clinging  disfigure- 
ments, another.  The  ugliest  female  dress,  in  oiu" 
opinion,  \vithout  exception,  was  that  which  we  con- 
ceive Mr.  Planche  to  allude  to  ;  and  which  confounded 
all  ages  and  shapes  by  girdling  the  gown  under  the 
arm-pits,  and  sticking  a  little  pad  at  the  pack,  almost 
between  the  shovdders !  It  reduced  all  figures  to 
lumps  of  absurdity.  No  well-shaped  woman,  we  may 
be  sure,  invented  it.  A  history  of  the  real  origin  of 
many  fashions  w^ould  be  a  curious  document.  We 
should  find  infirmity  and  unsightliness  cheating  youth 
and  beauty  into  an  imitation  of  them,  and  beaux  and 
belles  piquing  themselves  on  resembling  the  worst 
points  about  their  cunning  elders. 


292 


THE   SEER. 


As  long  as  a  man  wears  the  modern  coat,  he  has  no 
right  to  despise  any  dress.  What  a  thing  it  is,  though 
so  often  taken  for  something  "exquisite"!  What  a 
horse-collar  for  a  collar !  What  snips  at  the  collar 
and  lapels !  What  a  mechanical  and  ridiculous  cut 
about  the  flaps  !  What  buttons  in  front  that  are  never 
meant  to  button,  and  yet  are  no  ornament !  And 
what  an  exquisitely  absurd  pair  of  buttons  at  the 
back !  gravely  regarded  nevertheless,  and  thought  as 
indispensably  necessaiy  to  every  well-conditioned  coat, 
as  other  bits  of  metal  or  bone  are  to  the  bodies  of 
savages  whom  we  laugh  at.  There  is  absolutely  not 
one  iota  of  sense,  grace,  or  even  economy,  in  the 
modern  coat.  It  is  an  article  as  costly  as  it  is  ugly, 
and  as  ugly  as  it  is  useless.  In  winter  it  is  not 
enough,  and  in  hot  weather  it  is  too  much.  It  is  the 
tailors'  i-emnant  and  cabbaging  of  the  coats  formerly 
in  use,  and  deserves  only  to  be  chucked  back  to  them 
as  an  imposition  in  the  bill.  It  is  the  old  or  frock  coat, 
cut  away  in  front  and  at  the  sides,  mounted  with  a 
horse-collar,  and  left  with  a  ridiculous  tail.  The 
v>^aistcoat  or  vest,  elongated,  and  with  the  addition  of 
sleeves,  might  supersede  it  at  once,  and  be  quite  suf- 
ficient in  warm  weather.  A  vest  reaching  to  the 
mid-thigh  is  a  graceful  and  reasonable  habit,  and,  with 
the  addition  of  a  scarf  or  sash,  would  make  as  hand- 
some or  even  brilliant  a  one  as  anybody  could  desire. 
In  winter-time,  the  same  cloaks  would  do  for  it  as  are 
used  now ;  and  there  might  be  lighter  cloaks  for 
summer.  But  the  coat,  as  it  now  exists,  is  a  mere 
nuisance  and  expense,  and  disgraces  every  other  part 
of  the  dress,  except  the  neck-cloth.     Even  the  hat  is 


ENGLISH   MALE    COSTUME.  293 

too  good  for  it ;  for  a  hat  is  good  for  something, 
though  there  is  more  chimney-top  than  beauty  in  it. 
It  furnishes  shade  to  the  eyes,  and  has  not  always  an 
ill  look,  if  well-proportioned.  The  coat  is  a  sheer 
piece  of  mechanical  ugliness.  The  frock-coat  is  an- 
other matter,  except  as  to  the  collar,  which,  in  its 
present  rolled  or  bolstered  shape,  is  always  ugly.  As 
to  the  great-coat,  it  makes  a  man  look  either  like  a 
man  in  a  sack,  or  a  shorn  bear.  It  is  cloth  upon 
cloth,  clumsiness  made  clumsier,  sometimes  thrice 
over,  —  cloth  waistcoat,  cloth  coat,  cloth  great-coat,  — 
a  "three-piled  hypei'bole."  It  is  only  proper  for 
tra\'ellers,  coachmen,  and  others  who  require  to  have 
no  drapery  in  the  way.  A  cloak  is  the  only  handsome 
over-all. 

The  neck-cloth  is  worthy  of  the  coat.  What  a 
heaping  of  monstrosity  on  monstrosit}^ !  The  woollen 
horse-collar  is  bad  enough  ;  yet,  as  if  this  were  not 
sufficient,  a  linen  one  must  be  superadded.  Men  must 
look  as  if  they  were  twice  seized  with  symbols  of 
apoplexy,  —  the  horse-collar  to  shorten  the  neck,  and 
the  linen-collar  to  squeeze  it.  Some  man  with  a 
desperately  bad  throat  must  have  invented  the  neck- 
cloth, especially  as  it  had  a  faddi7ig  or  pudding  in 
it  when  it  first  came  up.  His  neck  could  not  have 
been  fit  to  be  seen.  It  must  have  been  like  a  pole,  or 
a  withered  stalk  ;  or  else  he  was  some  faded  fat  dandy, 
ashamed  of  his  double  chin.  There  can  be  no  objec- 
tion to  people's  looking  as  well  as  they  can  contrive, 
young  or  old ;  but  it  is  a  little  too  much  to  set  a 
fashion,  which,  besides  being  deformed,  is  injurious. 
The  man  was  excusable,  because  he  knew  no  better ; 


294  THE    SEER. 

but  it  is  no  wonder  if  painters  and  poets,  and  young 
Germans,  and  other  romantic  personages,  have  at- 
tempted to  throw  oft"  the  nuisance,  especially  such  as 
have  lived  in  the  South.  The  neck-cloth  is  ugly,  is 
useless,  is  dangerous  to  some,  and  begets  effeminate 
fear  of  colds  with  all.  The  English,  in  consequence 
of  their  living  more  in-doors  than  they  used,  fancy 
they  have  too  many  reasons  for  muffling  themselves 
up,  —  not  aware  that  the  more  they  do  so,  the  more 
they  subject  themselves  to  what  they  dread  ;  and  that 
it  is  by  a  general  sense  of  warmth  in  the  person  they 
are  to  be  made  comfortable  and  secure,  and  not  by 
filling  up  every  creek  and  cranny  of  their  dress  to  the 
very  chin. 

But  some  may  tell  us  they  cannot  feel  that  general 
warmth,  without  thus  muffling  themselves  up.  True, 
if  they  accustom  themselves  to  it ;  but  it  is  the  cus- 
tom itself  which  is  in  fault.  They  can  have  the 
warmth  without  it,  if  they  please ;  just  as  well  as  they 
can  without  muffling  up  their  eyes.  "  How  can  you 
go  with  your  body  naked?"  said  a  not  very  wise  per- 
son to  an  Indian.  "  How  can  you  go  with  your  face 
naked?"  said  the  Indian.  "I  am  used  to  it,"  replied 
the  man.  "Well,  and  I  am  used  to  the  other," 
rejoined  the  Indian:  "I  am  all  face''  Now  it  will 
not  exaaiy  do  to  be  "  all  face  "  in  a  civilized  country  ; 
the  police  would  objeft :  Piccadilly  is  not  Paradise. 
But  then  it  is  not  necessary  to  be  "  all  muffle." 

The  ladies  in  the  reign  of  Edward  I.  once  took  to 
wearing  a  cloth  round  their  throats  and  ears,  in  a  way 
which  made  a  poet  exclaim,  '■'•  Par  Dieul  I  have 
often  thought  in  my  heart,  when  I  have  seen  a  lady  so 


EXCI.ISH    MALE    COSTUME.  295 

closely  tied  up,  that  her  neck-cloth  was  nailed  to  her 
chin."  There  is  a  figure  of  her  in  Mr.  Planche's 
book,  p.  115.  Now  this  was  the  precise  appearance 
of  a  neck-cloth  some  years  back,  when  it  was  worn 
witli  a  pad  or  stiflener,  and  the  point  of  the  chin 
reposed  in  it ;  nay,  it  is  so  at  present  with  many. 
The  stock  looks  even  more  stiff  and  apopledlic,  espe- 
cially if  there  is  a  red  face  above  it.  When  dandies 
faint,  the  neck-cloth  is  always  the  first  thing  loosed,  as 
the  stays  are  with  a  lady. 

By  the  way,  the  dandies  wear  stays  too  !  We  have 
some  regard  for  these  gentlemen,  because  they  have 
reckoned  great  names  among  them  in  times  of  old, 
and  have  some  very  clever  and  amiable  ones  now,  and 
manly  withal  too.  They  may  err,  we  grant,  from  an 
excess  of  sympathy  with  what  is  admired,  as  well  as 
from  mere  folly  or  effeminacy.  But  whatever  approxi- 
mates a  man's  shape  to  a  woman's  is  a  deformit}'-. 
We  have  seen  some  of  them  with  hips,  upon  which 
they  should  have  gone  carrying  pails,  and  cried 
"  milk ! "  And  who  was  it  that  clapped  those  mon- 
strous protuberances  upon  the  bosoms  of  our  brave 
life-guards?  No  masculine  dandy,  we  may  be  sure. 
A  man's  breast  should  look  as  if  it  would  take  a 
hundred  blows  upon  it,  like  a  glorious  anvil,  and  not 
be  deformed  with  a  frightened  wadding;  still  less 
resemble  the  bosom  that  tenderness  peculiarly  encir- 
cles, and  that  is  so  beautiful  because  it  is  so  different 
from  his  own. 


296 


ENGLISH  WOMEN  VINDICATED. 


LENDER,  complaining  of  the  masquerade 
trick  that  had  been  put  on  him  at  the  close 
of  the  comedy,  says  that  he  had  "  married 
Anne  Page,"  and  "  she  was  a  great  lubberly  boy." 
Far  better  were  a  surprise  of  the  reverse  order,  which 
should  betray  itself  in  some  tone  of  voice,  or  senti- 
ment, or  other  unlooked-for  emanation  of  womanhood, 
while  we  were  thinking  ourselves  quietly  receiving  the 
visit  of  lubberly  himself,  or  rather  some  ingenious 
cousin  of  his ;  and  of  some  such  pleasure  we  have 
had  a  taste,  if  not  in  the  shape  of  any  Viola  or  Julia, 
or  other  such  flattering  palpabilit}',  yet  in  that  of  a  fair 
invisible  ;  for  we  recollect  well  our  Indicator  friend, 
"Old  Boy,"  who  sends  us  the  following  letter;  but 
what  if  we  have  discovered,  meanwhile,  that  "  Old 
Boy  "  is  no  boy  at  all,  nor  man  neither,  but  a  pretty 
woman,  and  one  that  we  think  this  a  pretty  occasion 
for  unmasking ;  since,  in  the  hearts  of  the  male  sex, 
English  women  will  find  defenders  enough  :  but  few 
of  themselves  have  the  courage  to  come  forward. 
Even  our  would-be  "  Old  Boy"  cannot  do  it  but  in 
disguise  ;  which  though  a  thing  very  well  for  her  to 
assume,  it  is  no  less  becoming  in  us,  we  think,  on 
such  an  occasion  to  take  off',  seeing  that  it  gives  the 


ENGLISH    WOMEN   VINDICATED.  29/ 

right  touching  effect  to  that  pretty  petuhince  in  her 
letter,  and  that  half-hiughing  tone  of  ill-treatment, 
which  somehow  has  such  a  feminine  breath  in  it,  and 
must  double  the  wish  to  be  on  her  side. 

Wonderful  is  the  effe<5l  produced  in  a  letter  by  the 
tone  in  which  we  read  it  or  suppose  it  written,  and 
by  the  knowledge  of  its  being  male  or  female.  The 
one  before  us  would  be  a  good  "defiance"  to  "Old 
Crony,"  were  its  signature  true ;  but  to  know  that  it  is 
written  by  a  woman  gives  it  a  new  interest,  and  quite 
another  sort  of  music.  Cannot  we  see  the  face  glow, 
and  the  dimples  playing  with  a  frown ;  and  hear 
the  light,  breathing  voice  bespeaking  the  question  in 
its  favor?  Does  it  not  make  "Old  Crony"  himself 
glad  to  be  "defied  to  the  uttermost?" 

TO  THE  EDITOR. 

Dear  old  Friend  with  a  new  face,  —  Your  corre- 
spondent, "  Old  Crony,"  seems  as  deficient  in  temper 
as  in  judgment,  in  his  brusque  remarks  upon  the  dress 
and  gait  of  our  fair  countrywomen  ;  nor  can  it  be 
allowed  him  that  he  has  chosen  the  best  place  to  study 
the  finest  specimens  of  English  women,  either  as 
regards  refinement  in  dress  or  bearing.  The  women 
who  most  frequent  bazaars  and  fashionable  drapers' 
are  generally  the  most  vacant-minded  and  petty  crea- 
tures in  existence  ;  who  wander  from  one  lounge  to 
another,  seeking  to  dispel  the  ejuiui  which  torments 
them,  by  any  frivolous  kill-time.  I  really  loathe  the 
sight  of  such  places,  and  think  they  have  done  much 
mischief  among  the  idle  and  ignorant  part  of  my 
countryAVomen.     But,  to  return  to  the  subjedl,  I  main- 


2C)8  THE    SEER. 

tain,  in  opposition  to  "  Old  Crony,"  that  in  no  other 
country  can  we  see  assembled  together  so  much 
beauty  and  grace,  good  dressing,  and  elegance  of 
carriage,  as  in  our  fashionable  promenades,  our  bril- 
liant assemblies,  and  still  more  in  those  delightful 
hojne-parties^  where  sprightliness  and  intelligence 
combine  to  give  grace  and  fascination.  Nothing 
parallel,  I  am  sure,  is  to  be  found  in  the  celebrated 
Loiigchamfs^  or  the  gardens  of  the  Tuileries  at  Paris, 
or  in  the  Graben  at  Vienna,  or  "  under  the  Lindens  " 
of  Berlin,  or  in  any  of  the  numerous  public  gardens 
on  the  Continent,  wherever  I  have  been :  and  I  call 
upon  all  my  bi-other  and  sister  tourists  to  bear  testi- 
mony with  me  on  this  mighty  question  ;  and  further- 
more, like  a  good  and  faithful  champion  in  the  cause 
of  the  fair  dames  and  damsels  of  Old  England,  I  do 
defy  "  Old  Crony"  to  the  uttermost,  more  especially 
for  his  inhuman  wish  of  screwing  English  faces  on  to 
French  figures,  which  would  be  a  fearful  "  dove- 
tailing" of  lovely  faces  upon  parchment  skeletons; 
si^eing  that  the  generality  of  French  females  are 
terribly  deficient  in  that  plumpness  and  roundness 
which  are  usually  considered  desirable  in  womanhood. 
I  agree  with  you,  dear  Ci-devant  Indicator,  that 
French  women  are  generally  more  respedled  and  are 
on  more  equal  terms  with  the  male  sex  than  our 
countrywomen  ;  but  I  must  differ  as  to  their  reading 
more,  or  being  better  informed.  It  is  true  that  in 
society  they  will  bear  their  part  well  in  general  or 
political  conversation  ;  but,  when  alone  with  a  Fi-ench 
woman,  she  would  be  grievously  offended  if  you 
chose  an_v  other  subjeft  than  her  own  personal  attrac- 


ENGLISH    WOMEN   VINDICATED.  299 

tions,  and  did  not  conclude  by  making  a  tender 
"  declaration^  These  are  the  eternal  themes  by 
which  alone  you  can  please  the  young  and  the  old, 
the  ugly  and  the  pretty ;  and  of  this  truth  many  will 
assure  you,  besides  your  old  friend,  admirer,  and 
correspondent,  Old  Boy. 

July  the  23d. 

P.S.  —  In  defending  the  dress  of  my  countrywomen, 
I  except  the  poorer  and  working  orders.  Every  other 
nation  has  a  peculiar  and  piduresque  costume  foi 
theirs :  ours  is  remarkable  only  for  its  sluttish, 
draggle-tailed  appearance,  at  least  in  London.  In 
country-places  the  peasant's  dress  is  comfortable,  if 
not  very  piquant. 

We  suspe6l  that  in  this,  as  in  most  controversies, 
there  is  less  real  ditference  of  opinion  between  the 
fair  and  unfair  parties  than  might  be  thought.  Our 
fair  correspondent  gives  up  the  bazaar  and  shop- 
hunting  people,  and  those  too  whose  dresses  are  of 
the  "  poorer  sort ; "  and  betwixt  these  classes,  or 
rather  including  them,  are  to  be  found,  we  conceive, 
all  the  dresses  and  the  walks  to  which  "  Old  Crony  " 
would  find  himself  objeding.  The  residue  might 
prove  its  claims  to  a  participation  in  the  general 
refinement  of  Europe,  without  giving  up  a  certain 
colorinsr  of  manners  as  natural  to  it  as  the  color  to 
its  sky.  And,  as  to  what  is  "delightful"  and  "fas- 
cinating," do  not  all  people  make  that  for  themselves, 
more  or  less,  out  of  the  amount  of  their  own  sympa- 
thy and  imagination?  and  does  not  each  nation",  as  we 


300  THE    SEER. 

said  before,  think  the  elite  of  its  own  charmers  the 
most  charming?  No  parties  are  so  dehghtful  to  our 
fair  correspondent  as  those  in  her  own  country.  Is 
not  this  precisely  what  would  be  said  by  a  cordial 
French  woman,  of  French  parties ;  by  an  Italian,  of 
Italian ;  and  so  on?  Custom  itself  is  a  good  thing,  if 
it  is  an  innocent  one.  We  feel  easy  in  it  as  in  a  form 
and  moultl  to  which  we  have  grown ;  but  when,  in 
addition  to  this  easiness,  we  think  of  all  the  feelings 
with  which  we  have  colored  it,  all  the  pleasure  we 
have  given  and  received,  all  our  joys,  sorrows,  friend- 
ships, loves,  and  religions,  we  may  conceive  how 
difficult  it  is  to  give  up  the  smallest  and  most  super- 
ficial forms  in  which  they  appear,  or  to  learn  how  to 
admit  the  superiority  of  any  thing  which  is  foreign  to 
them. 

Brusq2ic  attacks  —  sharp  and  loud  outcries  —  may 
sometimes  be  desirable  in  order  to  beget  notice  to  a 
question  ;  but,  undoubtedly,  the  way  to  persuade  is  to 
approve  as  much  as  one  can  ;  to  maintain,  by  loving 
means,  a  loving  attention.  If  we  do  not,  we  run  a 
chance,  instead  of  mending  the  mistakes  of  other  peo- 
ple, of  having  our  own  cast  in  our  teeth.  See,  for  in- 
stance, what  "  Old  Crony  "  has  done  for  himself  and  his 
fair  French  women  with  our  correspondent,  who  does 
not  deny  perhaps  that  the  French  "middle  classes" 
walk  better,  "generally"  speaking,  than  the  English, 
—  at  least  we  find  this  nowhere  surely  stated  or  im- 
plied,—  but  she  avails  herself  of  his  error  in  using  the 
word  "figures"  instead  of  "carriage,"  to  taunt  him 
with  the  want  of  plumpness  and  womanhood  in  tlie 
composition  of  his  favorites,  and  accuse  the  universal 


F-XvlMSH    WOMEN    VINDICATKD.  3OI 

French  feminity  of  being  "parchment  skeletons"! 
Here  is  the  comparative  French  thinness,  and  want  of 
red  and  white,  made  the  very  worst  of,  because  its 
panegyrist  made  the  worst  of  the  appearance  of  the 
other  parties.  For,  as  to  his  coniphment  to  their  hand- 
some faces,  this,  it  seems,  is  not  enough  in  these 
intelledlual  days. 

"Mind,  mind  alone,  (bear  witness  earth  and  heaven  !) 
The  living  fountain  in  itself  contains 
Of  beauteous  and  sublime !  " 

There  must  be  soul  from  head  to  foot,  —  evidence  of 
thorough  gracefulness  and  understanding ;  othenvise 
the  ladies  will  have  none  of  his  good  word.  Well, 
here  is  the  principle  admitted  on  both  sides.  Let 
those  who  wish  to  see  it  thoroughly  in  a6tion  set 
lovingly  about  the  task.  The  loving  will  soonest  per- 
suade, and  soonest  become  perfed:.  Had  "  Old  Crony," 
instead  of  expressing  his  "  inhuman  wish  of  screwing 
English  faces  on  to  French  figures,"  observed  that  the 
latter  are  better  in  spirit  than  in  substance,  and  shown 
his  anxiety  to  consult  the  feelings  and  enumerate  the 
merits  of  his  countrywomen,  we  suspe(5t  that  nobody 
would  have  been  readier  than  his  fair  antagonist  to  do 
justice  to  what  is  attra6live  in  her  French  sister- 
hood. 

That  there  are,  and  have  always  been,  numbers  of 
beautiful  women  in  France  as  well  as  in  England, 
and  beautiful  in  figure  too,  and  plump  withal,  no  Anti- 
gallican,  the  most  pious  that  ever  existed,  could  take 
upon  him  to  deny  ;  though  the  praise  conveyed  by  their 
word  ejnbonpoifii  (in  good  case),  which  means  "  fleshy 


303  TIIK    SEER. 

and  fattish"  (as  the  poet  has  it),  would  imply  that  the 
beaut}'  is  not  apt  to  be  of  that  order.  The  country  of 
Diana  de  Poitiers,  of  Agnes  Sorel,  and  of  all  the 
charmers  of  the  reigns  of  Valois  and  the  Bourbons,  is 
not  likely  to  lose  its  reputation  in  a  hurry  for  "  bevies 
of  bright  dames."  Charming  they  were,  that  is  certain, 
whether  plump  or  not ;  at  least  in  the  eyes  of  the 
princes  and  wits  that  admired  them  :  and  French 
admiration  must  go  for  something,  and  have  at  least 
a  geographical- voice  in  the  world,  whatever  Germany, 
or  Goethe  himself,  may  think  of  the  matter.  On  the 
other  hand,  far  are  we  from  abusing  all  or  any  of  the 
dear  plump  Germans  who  have  had  graceful  and  loving 
souls,  whether  fifteen,  like  poor  Margaret,  or  "  fat, 
fair,  and  forty,"  like  Madame  Schroeder-Devrient.  We 
have  been  in  love  with  them  time  out  of  mind,  in  the 
novels  of  the  good  village  pastor,  the  reverend  and 
most  amatory  Augustus  La  Fontaine.  The  Peninsular 
and  South-American  ladies,  albeit  beautiful  walkers, 
and  well-grounded  in  shape,  are  understood  not  to 
abound  in  plump  figin-es ;  yet  who  shall  doubt  the 
abundance  of  their  fascinations  that  has  read  what 
Cei-vantes  and  Camoens  have  said  of  them,  and  what  is 
said  of  their  eyes  and  gait  by  all  enamoured  travellers? 
Is  not  Dorothea  for  ever  sitting  by  the  brook-side,  beau- 
tiful, and  bathing  her  feet  in  the  pages  of  the  immortal 
Spaniard?  And  was  not  Inez  de  Castro  taken  out  of 
the  tomb,  in  order  to  have  her  very  coffin  crowned 
with  a  diadem,  —  so  triumphant  was  the  memory  of 
her  love  and  beauty  over  death  itself  ?  Italian  beauties 
are  almost  another  word  for  Italian  paintings,  and  for 
the  muses  of  Ariosto  and  of  song.     And  yet,  admiring 


EXGLISH    WOMEN    VINDICATED.  303 

all  these  as  we  do,  are  we  for  that  reason  traitors  to 
the  beauties  of  our  own  country  ?  or  do  we  not  rather 
the  more  admire  the  charmers  that  are  nearest  to  us, 
and  that  perpetuate  the  train  of  living  images  of  grace 
and  afle6tion  which  runs  through  the  whole  existence 
of  any  loving  obsei'ver,  like  a  frieze  across  the  tem- 
ple of  a  cheerful  religion? 

And  yet  all  this  does  not  hinder  us  from  wishing  that 
the  generality  of  our  countrywomen  walked  better 
and  dressed  better,  and  even  looked  a  little  less  reserved 
and  misgiving.  A  Frenchman  is  not  bound  to  wish 
the  generality  of  his  country-women  plumper,  because 
he  admires  them  for  other  beauties,  or  sees  plumpness 
enough  in  his  friends.  A  Spaniard  may  reasonably 
wish  his  a  little  more  red  and  white,  if  it  be  only  for 
the  sake  of  their  health  ;  and  if  a  jovial  table-loving 
Viennese  desired  after  all  a  little  less  plumpness  in 
his  adorable,  for  the  same  reason  (and  in  himself  too), 
we  should  not  quarrel  with  his  theory,  however  we 
might  objedl  to  his  pradlice. 

The  hatidsomesi  female  we  ever  beheld  was  at  Turin  : 
she  was  a  maid-servant,  crossing  a  square.  The  most 
ladylike-looking  female  ift  h7(mble  life  was  a  French 
girl,  the  daughter  of  a  small  innkeeper.  We  heard 
one  of  her  humble  admirers  speak  of  her  as  having 
the  air  d'ufie  petite  diichcsse  (of  a  little  duchess). 
But  the  most  char7ning  face  that  ever  furnished  us 
with  a  vision  for  life  (and  we  have  seen  many)  was 
one  that  suddenly  turned  round  in  a  concert-room  in 
England,  —  an  Englisli  girl's,  radiant  with  truth  and 
goodness.  All  expressions  of  that  kind  make  us  love 
tliem,  and  here  was  the  height  of  materi:d  charmingncss 


^O}  THE    SEER. 

added.  And  we  thought  the  figure  equal  to  the  face. 
We  know  not  whether  we  could  have  loved  it  for  ever, 
as  some  faces  can  be  loved  without  being  so  perfeft. 
Habit,  and  loving-kindness,  and  the  knowledge  of  the 
heart  and  soul,  could  alone  determine  that.  But,  if  not, 
it  was  the  divinest  imposition  we  ever  met  with. 


305 


SUNDAY  IN  LONDON. 


No.  I. 


T  is  astonishing  what  a  deal  of  good  stuff,  of 
some  sort  or  another,  inherent  or  associated, 
there  is  in  every  joossible  thing  that  can  be 
talked  of^  and  how  it  will  look  forth  out  of  the  dullest 
windows  of  commonplace,  if  sj'mpathy  do  but  knock 
at  the  door. 

There  is  that  house  for  instance,  this  very  Sunday, 
No.  4,  Ballycroft-row,  in  the  Smithy  :  did  you  ever  see 
such  a  house,  —  so  dull,  so  drearily  insipid,  so  very 
rainy-bad-Sunday  like  ?  Old,  yet  not  so  old  as  to  be 
venerable  ;  poor,  yet  not  enough  so  to  be  pitied  ;  the 
bricks  black  ;  the  place  no  thoroughfare  ;  no  chance  of 
a  hackney-coach  going  by ;  the  maid-serv^ant  has  just 
left  the  window,  yawning.  But,  now,  see  who  is  turn- 
ing the  corner,  and  comes  up  the  row.  Some  eminent 
man,  perhaps?  Not  he.  He  is  eminent  for  nothing, 
except  among  his  fellow-apprentices  for  being  the  best 
hand  among  them  at  turning  a  button.  But  look  how 
he  eyes,  all  the  way,  the  house  we  have  been  speaking 
of,  —  see  how  he  bounds  up  the  steps,  —  Asith  what  a 
face  !  now  cast  down  the  area,  and  now  raised  to  the 
upper  windows,  he  gives  his  humble,  yet  impressive 
knock ;  and,  lo  !  now  look  at  the  maid-servant's  face, 
as  she  darts  her  head  out  of  the  window,  and  instantly 
VOL.  I.  26 


3o6  THE   SEER. 

draws  it  back  again,  radiant  with  delight.  It  is  Tom 
Hicks,  who  has  come  up  from  Birmingham  a  week 
before  she  expelled  him.  The  door  is  opened  almost  as 
soon  as  the  face  is  seen  ;  and  now  is  tliere  love  and  joy 
in  that  house,  and  consequently  a  grace  in  the  street ; 
and  it  looks  quite  a  different  place,  at  least  in  the  eyes 
of  the  loving  and  the  wise. 

This  is  our  secret  for  making  the  dullest  street  in  the 
metropolis,  nay,  the  squalidest  and  worst,  put  forth 
some  flower  of  pleasantness  (for  the  seeds  of  good 
find  strange  corners  to  grow  in,  could  people  but  culti- 
vate them)  :  and,  if  our  secret  is  not  produ6live  to  every- 
body, it  is  no  fault  of  ours, — nay,  for  that  matter,  it  is 
none  of  theirs  ;  but  we  pity  them,  and  have  I'eason  to 
think  ourselves  richer.  We  happened  to  be  walking 
through  some  such  forlorn-looking  street  with  the  late 
Mr.  Hazlitt,  when  we  told  him  we  had  a  charm 
against  the  melancholy  of  such  places ;  and,  on  his 
asking  what  it  was,  and  being  informed,  he  acknow- 
ledged, with  a  look  between  pleasure  and  sorrow,  that 
it  was  a  true  one.  The  secret  came  home  to  him  ;  but 
he  could  have  understood  though  he  had  not  felt  it. 
Fancy  two  lovers  living  in  the  same  street,  either 
of  whom  thinks  it  a  delight  to  exist  in  the  same 
spot,  and  is  happy  for  the  morning  if  one  look  is  given 
through  the  window-pane.  It  puts  your  thoughts  in 
possession  of  the  highest  and  most  celestial  pleasure 
on  earth.  No  "  milk-white  thorn,  that  scents  the  even- 
ing gale,"  is  necessary  to  it,  though  it  is  a  very  fitting 
accompaniment.  The  dullest  street,  the  dullest  room, 
upon  earth,  is  sufficient,  and  becomes  a  spot  radiant 
beyond  the  dreams  of  princes.     Think  of  George  the 


SUNDAY   IN   LONDON.  307 

Fourth,  in  the  midst  of  all  the  splendor  of  Windsor 
Castle,  and  then  of  this  poor  maid-servant,  with  her 
health,  her  youth,  and  her  love,  looking  in  the  eyes  of 
the  man  she  is  fond  of,  and  hardly  able  to  speak  for 
gratitude  and  joy.  We  grant  that  there  is  no  compari- 
son, in  one  sense,  between  the  two  individuals,  —  the 
poor  old  king,  with  his  efforts  at  being  fine  and  happy, 
and  the  poor  young  girl,  with  her  black  worsted  stock- 
ings and  leaping  bosom,  as  happy  as  her  heart  can 
make  her.  But  the  contrast  may  sen^e  to  remind  us 
that  we  may  attribute  happiness  wrongly  in  fine  places, 
and  miss  it  erroneously  in  common  ones.  Windsor 
Castle  is  sufficient  beauty  to  itself,  and  has  poetical 
memories ;  but,  in  the  commonest  street  we  see,  there 
may  be  the  richest  real  joy.* 

Love  is  not  peculiar  to  London  on  Sundays.  They 
have  it  even  in  Edinburgh,  notwithstanding  what  a 
fair  charmer  in  "  Tait's  Magazine  "  tells  us,  with  such 
a  staid  countenance,  of  the  beatitudes  of  self-reflcdlion 
into  which  her  countrymen  retire  on  tliat  day.  Other- 
wise, out  of  love  alone,  we  might  render  our  dull- 
looking  metropolitan  sabbath  the  brightest  day  in  the 
week.  And  so  it  is,  and  in  Edinburgh  too  ;  and  all 
the  sabbath -day  world  over:  for  though,  seriously 
speaking,  we  do  not  deny  the  existence  of  the  tranquil 
and  solitary  contemplations  just  alluded  to,  yet  assur- 
edly they  are  as  nothing  compared  to  the  thoughts 
connedted  with  everv-dav  matters ;  and  love,  fortun- 
ately,  is  an  every-day  matter,  as  well  as  money.     Our 

*  There  is  now,  thank  God,  love  as  well  as  splendor  in  Windsor 
Castle.  One  may  fancy  the  praces  of  Mr.  Keats's  "  Eve  of  Saint  Agnes  " 
realized  there,  without  the  troubles  of  it. 


3nS  THE    SEER. 

Sunday  streets  look  dull  enough,  heaven  knows,  especi- 
ally in  the  more  trading  parts  of  the  metropolis.  At 
the  west  end  of  the  town,  in  Marylebone,  and  the 
squares,  it  looks  no  duller  than  it  does  on  other  daj-s  ; 
and,  taking  the  spirit  of  the  thing,  there  is  no  real 
vSunday  among  the  rich.  Their  going  to  church  is  a 
lounge  and  a  show ;  their  meals  are  the  same  as  at 
other  times  ;  their  evenings  the  same  ;  there  is  no  dif- 
ference in  the  look  of  their  houses  outside.  But  in 
the  city,  the  Strand,  &c.,  the  shutting-up  of  the  shops 
gives  an  extreme  aspedl  of  dulness  and  melancholy 
to  the  streets.  Those  windows,  full  of  gayety  and  color 
and  bustle,  being  shut,  the  eyes  of  the  houses  seem  put 
out.  The  clean  clothes,  and  comparatively  staid  de- 
meanor of  the  passengers,  make  no  amends  for  the  loss  ; 
for,  with  the  exception  of  special  friends  and  visitors, — 
lovers  in  particular,  —  it  is  well  understood  in  London, 
that  Sunday  is  really  a  dull  day  to  most  people.  They 
have  outlived  the  opinions  which  gave  it  an  interest  of 
a  peculiar  sort ;  and  their  notions  of  religion  have 
become  either  too  vitilitarian  or  too  cheerful  to  admire 
the  old  fashion  of  the  day  any  longer.  Rest,  with 
insipidity,  is  its  chara6ler  in  the  morning,  newspaper 
reading  excepted.  Church  is  reckoned  dull,  perhaps 
attended  out  of  mere  habit,  "  and  for  the  sake  of  ex- 
ample ; "  or  avoided  froin  day  to  day,  till  non-attendance 
becomes  another  habit.  Dinner,  under  any  circvim- 
stances,  is  looked  to  with  eagerness  as  the  great  relief: 
the  day  then  brightens  up,  with  the  help  of  an  extra 
dish,  pudding,  or  friend ;  and  the  visits  of  friends  help 
1o  make  the  evening  as  lively  as  it  well  can  be,  without 
the  charm  of  business  and  money-taking.    Should  there 


SUNDAY   IN   LONDON.  309 

be  no  visitors,  the  case  is  generally  helpless.  The  man 
and  wife  yawn,  or  are  quiet,  or  dispute  :  a  little  bit  of 
book  is  read,  till  the  reader  complains  of  "  weak  eyes," 
or  says  that  it  is  unaccountable  how  sleepy  reading 
makes  him,  considering  he  is  so  "  fond  "  of  it ;  bibs 
are  pulled  up  about  the  gentleman's  chin,  and  gowns 
admired  by  their  fair  wearers  ;  and  the  patients  lounge 
towards  the  window,  to  wonder  whether  it  is  fine,  or 
is  clearing-up,  or  to  look  at  the  raindrops,  or  see  what 
Mrs.  Smith  is  doing  over  the  way.  The  young  gentle- 
men or  ladies  look  at  the  Bible,  or  the  calendar,  or  the 
army-list,  or  the  last  magazine,  or  their  trinkets,  and 
wonder  whether  Richard  will  come  ;  and  the  little  chil- 
dren are  told  not  to  sing. 

But  the  lovers ! 

These,  however,  we  shall  keep  till  the  last,  agi^eeably 
to  the  demands  of  climax. 

But  stay  a  moment. 

So  tender,  or  rather,  according  to  Mr.  Bentham's 
philosophy,  so  "  extra-regarding  prudent,"  and  so  "  feli- 
city-maximizing," is  our  heart,  that  we  fear  we  may 
have  been  thought  a  little  hard  by  those  whom  we  have 
described  as  uniting  a  sleepiness  over  their  books,  with 
a  profession  of  astonishment  at  their  tendency,  con- 
sidering they  are  "  so  fond  of  books."  But  mistake  us 
not,  dear  non-readers,  who  happen  to  be  reading  us,  or 
who  read  a  newspaper,  though  you  read  little  else. 
Nothing  would  we  ever  willingly  say  to  the  useless 
mortification  of  anybody,  much  less  of  those  who  love 
any  thing  whatsoever,  especially  a  newspaper  ;  and  all 
the  fault  we  find  with  you  is  for  thinking  it  necessary 
to  vindicate  your  reputation  for  sense  and  sympathy  on 


3IO  THE    SEER. 

one  particular  score,  when  you  might  do  it  to  better 
advantage  by  regretting  the  want  of  the  very  fondness 
you  hiy  claim  to.  For,  in  claiming  to  be  fond  of  books 
when  you  are  not,  you  show  yourselves  unaware  of 
the  self-knowledge  which  books  help  us  to  obtain  ; 
whereas,  if  you  boldly  and  candidly  expressed  your 
regret  at  not  being  fond  of  them,  you  would  show  that 
you  had  an  understanding  so  far  superior  to  the  very 
want  of  books,  and  far  greater  than  that  of  the  mechan- 
ical scholar  who  knows  the  words  in  them,  and  nothing 
else.  You  would  show  that  you  knew  what  you  wanted, 
and  were  aware  of  the  pleasures  that  you  missed ;  and 
perhaps  it  would  turn  out,  on  inquiry,  that  you  had 
only  been  indifterent  to  books  in  the  gross,  because 
you  had  not  met  with  the  sort  of  reading  suitable  to 
your  turn  of  mind.  Now,  we  are  not  bound  to  like 
books  unsuitable  to  us,  any  more  than  a  poet  is  bound 
to  like  law-books,  or  a  lawyer  the  study  of  Arabic,  or 
a  musician  any  books  but  his  own  feelings  ;  nor  is  any 
one,  more  than  the  musician,  bound  to  like  books  at 
all,  provided  he  loves  the  things  which  books  teach  us 
to  love,  and  is  for  sowing  harmony  and  advancement 
around  him,  in  tones  of  good-huinor  and  encourage- 
ment, to  the  kindly  dance  of  our  planet. 

One  of  the  pleasantest  sights  on  a  Sunday  morning 
in  the  metropolis  —  to  us  of  course  particularly  so,  but 
justly  also  to  all  well-disposed  and  thinking  Christians 
—  is  the  nmnerous  shops  exhibiting  weekly  papers  for 
sale,  —  the  placards  of  our  hebdomadal  brethren,  blue, 
yellow,  and  white,  vociferous  with  large  types,  and 
calling  the  passenger's  attention  to  parliamentary  in- 
vestigations, monstrous  convi(?tions,  horrible  murders, 


SUNDAY   IN   LONDON.  31I 

noble  philanthropies,  and  the  humanities  of  books, 
theatres,  and  the  fine  arts.  Justly  did  the  divine  Heart, 
who  suftered  his  disciples  to  pluck  the  ears  of  corn, 
and  would  have  the  sheep  extricated  from  the  ditch  on 
a  sabbath,  refuse  to  disconnedt  the  day  of  worship 
with  works  of  necessity  and  mercy ;  and  what  so  ne- 
cessary for  the  poor,  the  especial  objedls  of  his  regard, 
as  a  knowledge  of  what  can  be  done  for  them  ?  What 
so  merciful  as  to  help  them  to  supply  their  wants,  both 
of  body  and  mind  ?  Leaving  this  more  serious  part  of 
the  subje6l  (which,  however,  is  not  inharmoniously 
mixed  up  with  our  lighter  matter ;  for  the  gi^eatest 
gravity  and  the  most  willing  cheerfulness  have  but  one 
objedl),  we  pass  by  the  other  open  or  peeping  shops 
(such  as  the  pastry-cooks',  who  keep  up  the  supply  of 
indigestion,  and  the  apothecary's,  who  is  conveniently 
ready  against  the  consequences),  and  stop  a  moment 
at  our  friend  the  barber's,  who  provides  a  newspaper 
for  his  waiting  customers,  as  men  of  his  trade  formerly 
provided  a  lute  or  a  guitar.  The  solace  is  not  so 
elegant.  There  must  have  been  something  very  pecu- 
liar, and  superior  to  the  occasion,  in  the  sound  of  a 
guitar  in  a  barber's  shop,  —  of  "beauty,  retire,"  grace- 
fully played  into  the  face  of  a  long-visaged  old  gentle- 
man under  the  soap-suds  ;  or,  — 

"  Since  first  I  saw  your  face,  I  resolved 
To  honor  and  renown  you ;  " 
or,— 

"  In  this  pleasant  place,  retired  j " 
or,— 

"  Come,  if  you  dare ; " 

just  as  the  operator's  fingers  were  approaching  the 
patient's  nose.     The  newspaper,  however,  though  not 


312 


THE    SEER. 


SO  choice,  or  furnishing  opportunities  to  the  poor  polite 
to  show  the  seleclness  and  segregation  of  their  accom- 
plishments, shows  a  higher  refinement,  on  the  part  of 
the  poor  in  general,  or  the  many.  But  we  must  be 
moving  onward. 

There  is  the  bell  going  for  church.  Forth  come 
Mrs.  and  Miss  A ;  then  the  Mr.  B's,  in  their  new 
brown  coats,  and  staid  gloves  ;  then  Mr.,  Mrs.,  and  the 
Miss  C's,  in  a  world  of  new  bonnets  and  ribbons.  Oh, 
ho  !  young  Mr.  D,  from  over  the  way,  joins  them,  and 
is  permitted  to  walk  with  Miss  C  by  herself:  so  the 
thing  is  certain.  See !  she  explains  to  him  that  she 
has  forgotten  her  prayer-book  —  by  accident,  and  he 
joyfully  shows  her  his  own  ;  which  means,  that  he 
means  to  read  the  collect  with  her,  out  of  the  same 
book  ;  which  makes  her  blush  and  smile,  and  attempt 
to  look  gratefully  indiiferent,  which  is  impossible :  so 
she  does  not  much  endeavor  it,  and  they  are  both  as 
happy  as  if  the  church  were  made  of  tarts  and  cheese- 
cakes. We  are  passing  the  church  now  ;  so  we  see  no 
more  of  them.  But  there  is  the  beadle,  in  his  laced 
hat,  taking  the  apple  from  the  charity-boy,  and  looking 
very  angry,  for  it  is  not  a  good  one  ;  and  there  come 
the  E's,  quarrelling  up  to  the  church-door  about  which 
walks  the  heaviest ;  and  F,  making  his  sisters  laugh 
beforehand,  at  the  way  in  which  the  clerk  opens  his 
mouth  ;  and  G,  who  hates  the  parson  ;  and  the  parson, 
who  hates  G  ;  and  H,  I,  J,  K,  and  L,  who  are  indiffer- 
ent about  the  matter,  and  are  thinking  of  their  dinner, 
boots,  neck- cloths,  and  next  day;  and,  not  to  go 
through  the  whole  alphabet,  here  is  M  dashing  up  in 
his  carriage,  which  the  coachman  is  to  keep  for  him 


SUNDAY    IN    LONDON.  313 

till  he  has  "walked  humbly  with  his  God,"   and  is 
ready  to  strut  forth  again. 

In  childhood,  the  church  bells  used  to  make  us 
melancholy.  They  have  not  that  efle6l  now.  The 
reason  we  take  to  be,  that  they  sounded  to  us  then 
from  the  remote  regions  of  the  whole  world  out  of 
doors,  and  of  all  the  untried  hopes  and  fears  and 
destinies  which  they  contain.  We  have  since  known 
them  more  familiarly,  and  our  regard  is  greater,  and 
even  more  serious,  though  mixed  with  cheerfulness  ; 
and  is  not  at  all  melancholy,  except  when  the  bell  tolls 
for  a  funeral ;  which  custom,  by  the  way,  is  a  nuisance, 
and  ought  to  be  abolished,  if  only  out  of  consideration 
for  the  sick  and  sorrowful.  One  of  the  reasons  why 
church  bells  have  become  cheerful  to  us,  is  the  having 
been  accustomed  to  hear  them  among  the  cheerful 
people  of  Tuscany.  The  Catholic  countries'  bells  are 
ringing  at  all  seasons,  not  always  to  the  comfort  of 
those  who  hear  them  ;  but  the  custom  has  associated 
them  in  our  minds  with  sunshine  and  good-nature. 
We  also  like  them  on  account  of  their  frequency  in 
colleges.  Finally,  they  remind  us  of  weddings,  and 
other  holidays  ;  and  there  is  one  particular  little  jingle 
in  some  of  them  which  brings  to  our  memory  the 
walking  to  church  by  the  side  of  a  parent,  and  is  very 
dear  to  us. 


VOL.  I.  27 


3H 


SUNDAY  IN  LONDON. 

No.  II. 

ARD  is  it,  tliou  coming  kindness,  and  hard, 
thou  ah-eady-existing  knowledge  and  kindness 
too  of  Christian  philanthropists  and  philoso- 
phers, not  to  feel  a  wish  to  take  the  cane  out  of  the 
hands  of  the  beadle  yonder,  who  is  tyrannizing  over 
barrow-women  and  little  boys,  and  lay  it  about  his 
own  hat.  In  the  name  of  God,  what  sort  of  Christian- 
ity would  the  law  have,  if  it  is  not  to  be  Christian? 
if  it  is  not  to  prefer  "  spirit"  to  "  letter"?  There  are 
some  men,  according  to  whose  notions  it  would  appear 
as  if  heaven  itself  ought  to  shut  up  shop  on  Sundays, 
and  afibrd  us  no  light  and  sunshine.  We  verily  believe, 
that  they  think  the  angels  go  to  church  on  that  day, 
and  put  on  clean  wings  ;  and  that  St.  Paul  preaches  a 
sermon. 

See,  now,  here  comes  a  little  fellow  whom  they  would 
suppress,  —  clean  as  a  pink,  far  happier  than  a  prince, 
a  sort  of  little  angel  himself,  making  allowance  for  the 
pug-nose  ;  but  innocence  and  happiness  are  in  his  face, 
and  before  him  (not  to  speak  it  profanely)  is  the  beatific 
vision  of  the  piece  of  hot  mutton  which  he  is  caiTying 
home  from  the  baker's,  and  devouring  with  his  eyes. 
He  is  an  honest  boy,  for  his  mother  has  trusted  him 
with  carrying  the  meat  and  the  baked  potatoes  ;  and  it 


SUNDAY   IN    LONDON.  315 

is  the  only  bit  of  meat  which  he  or  she,  or  his  father, 
can  get  to  eat  all  the  week  round  ;  and  his  little  sisters 
are  to  have  some  of  it,  for  they  have  all  been  good,  and 
helped  to  earn  it ;  and  so  here  is  a  whole,  good,  hard- 
working, honest  family,  whom  the  religious  eaters  of 
hot  meat  every  day  would  prevent  from  having  their 
bit  on  Sundays, — because  why?  Because  it  would  do 
the  poor  souls  any  harm?  No  ;  but  because  it  would 
do  their  rich  dictators  the  harm  of  seeing  their  own 
pragmatical  will  and  pleasure  opposed,  —  humors,  the 
very  result  perhaps  of  their  own  stuffing  and  indiges- 
tion. 

A  Sunday  evening  in  London,  with  its  musical  and 
other  social  meetings,  such  as  cannot  take  place  be- 
tween men  in  business  during  the  rest  of  the  week, 
has  parties  enough  to  render  it  much  livelier  than  it 
appears.  But  the  lovers  —  the  lovers  are  the  thing. 
With  them  we  begin,  and  with  them  we  conclude  ; 
for  what  so  good  to  begin,  or  to  end  with,  as  love? 
We  loved  as  early  as  we  can  recoUedl ;  we  love  now  ; 
and  our  death  will  be  a  loving  one,  let  it  be  colored 
otherwise  as  it  may. 

When  we  speak  of  lovers  on  a  Sunday  evening,  we 
mean,  of  course,  lovers  who  cannot  well  visit  on  any 
other  day  in  the  week  ;  and  whose  meetings,  therefore, 
are  rendered  as  intense  as  they  can  be  by  the  infre- 
quency.  What  signify  the  circumstances  that  may 
have  hindered  them !  Let  them  be  button-making, 
bread-making,  or  a  clerkship,  or  servitude,  or  any  other 
chance  or  condition  of  life,  what  care  we,  provided 
the  love  be  genuine,  and  the  pleasure  truly  felt !  Burns 
was  a  ploughman  ;  Allan  Ramsay,  a  hair-dresser  ;  Gay, 


31  6  THE    SEER. 

at  one  time,  a  mercer ;  Richardson,  a  printer ;  Dods- 
ley,  a  footman.  Do  we  suppose  that  the  authors  of 
"  Sir  Charles  Grandison,"  "  Black-eyed  Susan,"  and 
the  finest  love-songs  in  the  world,  did  not  make  as 
cordial  and  exquisite  lovers  as  the  best-bred  gentlemen 
about  town?  and  that  their  misti"esses  and  they  did 
not  worship  each  other  with  a  vivacity  and  a  passion 
infinite  ? 

Our  Sunday  lover,  then,  is  an  apprentice  or  a  clerk, 
and  his  mistiness  is  a  tradesman's  daughter ;  and  they 
meet  only  on  Sundays  and  Sunday  evenings,  counting 
every  minute  till  the  time  arrives,  listening  to  every 
knock,  trying  to  look  calm,  when  tlie  other  joins  the 
family  party :  for  they  seldom  see  one  another  alone, 
even  then.  But  now  they  are  at  least  in  the  same 
room,  and  happiness  is  with  them.  They  see  and 
hear  each  other ;  they  see  the  little  manoeuvres  to  get 
a  nearer  seat ;  at  length  they  sit  close  together.  The 
parents  are  not  displeased,  and  let  things  take  their 
course.  This  is,  perhaps,  the  happiest  time  of  court- 
ship, when  lovers  feel  secure  of  one  another's  affec- 
tions, and  only  have  just  sufficient  doubt  of  otlier 
security  to  make  every  thing  seem  dependent  on  them- 
selves and  the  result  of  their  own  will  and  choice. 
By  degrees,  as  the  family  divide  in  their  talk,  they 
are  suffered  to  talk  exclusively  together.  Every  word 
is  precious ;  every  question  the  most  indifferent  has  a 
meaning  :  it  is  sufficient  for  one  to  say,  "  I  like  this," 
or  "I  like  that;"  and  the  other  thinks  it  a  charming 
observation,  —  a  proof  of  fine  sense,  or  feeling,  or  taste, 
or,  above  all,  of  love  :  for  the  eyes,  or  the  quivering  lips, 
or  the  panting  bosom,  speak  with  it ;    and  the  whole 


SUNDAY    IN    LONDON.  317 

intercourse,  whether  speaking  or  silent,  is  one  of 
intense  acquiescence  and  delight.  A  gentleman  comes 
up,  and  gallantly  addresses  some  smiling  remark  to  the 
lady :  the  lover,  if  he  is  not  quite  sure  of  her  mind, 
begins  to  be  jealous.  The  gentleman  moves  off,  and 
a  remark  at  his  expense  prostrates  the  lover's  soul 
with  gratitude.  The  lady  leaves  the  room  to  put  a 
child  to  bed,  or  speak  to  a  sister,  or  look  after  the 
supper,  and  darkness  falls  upon  the  place.  She  re- 
turns ;  and  her  footsteps,  her  face,  her  frock,  her  sweet 
countenance  is  thrice  blessed,  and  brings  happiness 
back  again.  She  resumes  her  chair,  with  a  soft 
"  thank  ye,"  as  he  elaborately,  and  for  no  need  what- 
soever, puts  it  in  its  best  position  for  being  resumed ; 
and  never,  he  thinks,  did  soul,  breath,  and  bosom  go 
so  sweetly  together  as  in  the  utterance  of  that  simple 
phrase.  For  her  part,  she  has,  secretly,  hardly  any 
bounds  to  her  gratitude  ;  and  it  is  lucky  that  they  are 
both  excellent  good  people,  otherwise  the  very  virtues 
of  one  or  other  of  them  might  be  their  destrudlion. 
(Ah !  they  will  think  of  this  in  aftertimes,  and  not 
look  with  severe  countenances  on  the  vi6tims  of  the 
less  honorable.)  At  length  they  sit  looking  over  some 
pidlures  together,  or  a  book  which  they  are  as  far 
from  reading  as  if  they  did  not  see  it.  They  turn  over 
the  leaves,  however,  with  a  charming  hypocrisy,  and 
even  carry  their  eyes  along  the  lines ;  their  cheeks 
touch  ;  his  hand  meets  hers,  by  favor  of  the  table- 
cloth or  the  handkerchief;  its  pressure  is  returned; 
you  might  hear  their  hearts  beat,  if  you  could  listen. 

Oh  !    welcome,  war ;   welcome,  sorrow  ;   welcome, 
folly,    mistake,    per\'erseness,    disease,    deatli,    disap- 


3l8  THE   SEER. 

pointment,  all  the  ills  of  life,  and  the  astonishments  of 
man's  soul !  Those  moments,  nay,  the  recolleftions 
of  them,  are  worth  the  whole  payment.  Our  children 
will  love  as  we  have  loved,  and  so  cannot  be  wholly 
miserable.  To  love,  even  if  not  beloved,  is  to  have 
the  sweetest  of  faiths,  and  riches  fineless,  which  noth- 
ing can  take  from  us  but  our  own  unworthiness.  And 
once  to  have  loved  truly  is  to  know  how  to  continue 
to  love  every  thing  which  unlovingness  has  not  had  a 
hand  in  altering,  —  all  beauties  of  nature  and  of  mind  ; 
all  truth  of  heart ;  all  trees,  flowers,  skies,  hopes,  and 
good  beliefs  ;  all  dear  decays  of  person,  fading  towards 
a  twofold  grave  ;  all  trusts  in  heaven  ;  all  faiths  in  the 
capabilities  of  loving  man.  Love  is  a  perpetual  proof 
that  something  good  and  earnest  and  eternal  is  meant 
us,  such  a  bribe  and  foretaste  of  bliss  being  given  us 
to  keep  us  in  the  lists  of  time  and  progression ;  and, 
when  the  world  has  realized  what  love  urges  it  to 
obtain,  perhaps  death  will  cease ;  and  all  the  souls 
which  love  has  created,  crowd  back  at  its  summons  to 
uihabit  their  perfected  world. 

Truly  we  have  finished  our  Sunday  evening  with  a 
rapt  and  organ-like  note.  Let  the  reader  fancy  he  has 
heard  an  organ  indeed.  Its  voice  is  not  unapt  for  the 
produ6tion  of  svich  thoughts  in  those  who  can  rightly 
listen  to  its  consummate  majesty  and  warbling  modu- 
lations. 

[Something  yet  remains  to  be  said  of  "  Sunday  in 
the  Suburbs."] 


3^9 


SUNDAY  IN  THE   SUBURBS. 

Being  more  JLast  Words  on  "  Su7iday  in  London;** 
Tjuith  a  Digression  on  the  Name  of  Smith. 

fN  writing  our  articles  on  this  subjedl,  we  have 
been  so  taken  up,  first  with  the  dull  look  of 
the  Siuiday  streets,  and  afterwards  with  the 
lovers  who  make  their  walls  lively  on  the  hidden  side, 
that  we  faii'ly  overlooked  a  feature  in  our  metropolitan 
sabbath,  eminently  sabbatical ;  to  wit,  the  suburbs 
and  their  holiday-makers.  What  a  thing  to  forget ! 
What  a  thing  to  forget,  even  if  it  concerned  only 
Smith  in  his  new  hat  and  boots !  Why,  he  has  been 
thijiking  of  them  all  the  week ;  and  how  could  we, 
who  sympathize  with  all  the  Smith-ism  and  boots  in 
existence,  forget  them?  The  hatter  did  not  bring 
home  his  hat  till  last  night ;  the  boot-maker,  his  boots 
till  this  morning.  How  did  not  Smith  (and  he  is  a 
shrewd  fellow  too,  and  reads  us)  pounce  upon  the  hat- 
box,  undo  its  clinging  pasteboard  lid,  whisk  oft'  the 
silver  paper,  delicately  develop  the  dear  beaver,  and 
put  it  on  before  the  glass  !  The  truth  must  be  owned  : 
he  sat  in  it  half  supper -time.  Never  was  such  a 
neat  fit.  All  Aldersgate,  and  the  City  Road,  and  the 
New  Road,  and  Camden  and  Kentish  towns,  glided 
already  before  him  as  he  went  along  in  it,  —  hatted  in 


320  THE   SEER. 

thought.  He  could  have  gone  to  sleep  in  It,  —  if  it 
would  not  have  spoiled  his  nap,  and  its  ovv^n. 

Then  his  boots!  Look  at  him.  There  he  goes  — 
up  Someistown.  Who  vs^ould  suspedl,  from  the  ease 
and  superiority  of  his  countenance,  that  he  had  not 
had  his  boots  above  two  hovirs  ;  that  he  had  been  a 
good  fourtli  part  of  the  time  laboring  and  fetching  the 
blood  up  in  his  face  with  pulling  them  on  with  his 
boot-hooks  ;  and  that,  at  this  moment,  they  horribly 
pinch  him?  But  he  has  a  small  foot  —  has  Jack 
Smith ;  and  he  would  squeeze,  jam,  and  damn  it  into 
a  thimble,  rather  than  acknowledge  it  to  be  a  bit 
larger  than  it  seems. 

Do  not  think  ill  of  him,  especially  you  that  are 
pinched  a  little  less.  Jack  has  sympathies ;  and,  as 
long  as  the  admiration  of  the  community  runs  towards 
little  feet  and  well-polished  boots,  he  cannot  dispense, 
in  those  quarters,  with  the  esteem  of  his  fellow-men. 
As  the  sympathies  enlarge,  Jack's  boots  will  gi^ow 
wider ;  and  we  venture  to  prophesy,  that  at  forty  he 
will  care  little  for  little  feet,  and  much  for  his  corns 
and  the  public  good.  We  are  the  more  bold  in  this 
anticipation,  from  certain  reminiscences  we  have  of 
boots  of  our  own.  We  shall  not  enter  Into  details,  for 
fear  of  compromising  the  dignity  of  literature  ;  but  the 
good-natured  may  think  of  them  what  they  please. 
Non  ignara  mail  (said  Dido),  miser  Is  succurrere 
disco;  that  Is,  having  known  what  it  was  to  wear 
shoes  too  small  herself,  she  should  never  measure,  for 
her  part,  the  capabilities  of  a  woman's  head  by  the 
pettiness  of  her  slippers. 

Napoleon  was  proud  of  a  little  foot ;  and  Caesar,  in 


SUNDAY    IN   THE   SUUURBS.  32I 

his  youth,  was  a  dandy.  So  go  on,  Smith,  and  bear 
your  tortures  Hke  a  man  ;  especially  towards  one 
o'clock,  when  it  will  be  hot  and  dusty. 

Smith  does  not  carry  a  cane  with  a  twist  at  the  top 
of  it  for  a  handle.  That  is  for  an  inferior  grade  of 
holiday-maker,  who  pokes  about  the  suburbs,  gaping 
at  the  new  buildings,  or  treats  his  fellow-ser\-ant  to  a 
trip  to  White  Conduit-house,  and  an  orange  by  the 
way,  —  always  too  sour.  Smith  has  a  stick  or  a  whan- 
ghee ;  or,  if  he  rides,  a  switch.  He  is  not  a  good 
rider :  and  we  must  say  it  is  his  own  fault ;  for  he 
rides  only  on  Sundays,  and  will  not  scrape  acquaint- 
ance with  the  ostler  on  other  days  of  the  week.  You 
may  know  him  on  horseback  by  the  brisk  forlornness 
of  his  steed,  the  inclined  plane  of  his  body,  the  ex- 
treme outwardness  or  inwardness  of  his  toes,  and  an 
expression  of  face  betwixt  ardor,  fear,  and  indifference. 
He  is  the  most  without  a  footman  of  any  man  in  the 
world  ;  that  is  to  say,  he  has  the  most  excessive  desire 
to  be  taken  for  a  man  who  ought  to  have  one  ;  and 
therefore  the  space  of  road  behind  him  pursues  him, 
as  it  were,  with  the  reproach  of  its  emptiness. 

A  word,  by  the  way,  as  to  our  use  of  the  generic 
name  "  Smith."  A  correspondent  wrote  to  us  the 
other  day,  intimating  that  it  would  be  a  good-natured 
thing  if  we  refrained  in  future  from  designating  classes 
of  men  by  the  name  of  "  Tomkins."  We  know  not 
whether  he  was  a  Tomkins  himself,  or  whether  he 
only  felt  for  some  friend  of  that  name,  or  for  the 
whole  body  of  the  Tomkinscs :  all  we  know  is,  that 
he  has  taken  the  word  out  of  our  mouth  for  ever. 
How  many  paragraphs  he  may  have  ruined  by  it,  we 


322 


THE    SEER. 


cannot  say ;  but  the  truth  is,  he  has  us  on  our  weak 
side.  We  can  resist  no  appeal  to  our  good-nature 
made  by  a  good-natured  man.  Besides,  we  Hke  him 
for  the  seriousness  and  good  faith  with  which  he  took 
the  matter  to  heart,  and  for  the  niceness  of  his  sym- 
pathy. Adieu,  then,  name  of  Tomkins !  Jenkins 
also,  for  a  like  respectful  reason,  we  shall  abstain  from 
in  future.  But  let  nobody  interfere  in  behalf  of  Smith  ; 
for  Smith  does  not  want  it.  Smith  is  too  universal. 
Even  a  John  Smith  could  not  regard  the  use  of  his 
name  as  personal ;  for  John  Smith,  as  far  as  his  name 
is  concerned,  has  no  personality.  He  is  a  class,  a 
huge  body :  he  has  a  good  bit  of  the  Directory  to 
himself.  You  may  see,  for  pages  together  (if  our 
memory  does  not  deceive  us),  John  Smith,  John 
Smith,  John  Smith  ;    or,  rather,  — 

Smith,  John, 
Smith,  John, 
Smith,  John ; 


Smith,  John, 
Smith,  John, 
Smith,  John, 


and  so  on,  with  everlasting  Smith-Johnism,  like  a  set 
of  palisades  or  iron  rails ;  almost  as  if  you  could 
make  them  clink  as  you  go,  with  drawing  something 
along  them.  The  repetition  is  dazzling.  The  mo- 
notony bristles  with  sameness.  It  is  a  chevaux-de- 
Smith.  John  Smith,  in  short,  is  so  public  and  multi- 
tudinous a  personage,  that  we  do  not  hesitate  to  say 
we  know  an  excellent  individual  of  that  name,  whose 
regard  we  venture  thus  openly  to  boast  of,  without 
fearing  to  run  any  danger  of  offending  his  modesty ; 
for  nobody  will  know  whom  we  mean.  An  Italian 
poet  says  he  hates  his  name  of  John  ;   because,  if  any- 


SUNDAY    IN    THE    SUBURBS.  323 

body  calls  him  by  it  in  the  street,  twenty  2)eoplc  look 
out  of  window.  Now,  let  anybody  call  "John  Smith  ! " 
and  half  Holborn  will  cry  out,  "Well?" 

As,  to  other  and  famous  Smiths,  they  are  too 
strong-ly  marked  out  by  their  fame  —  sometimes  by  their 
Christian  names,  and  partly,  indeed,  by  the  uncommon 
lustre  they  attain  through  their  very  commonness  —  to 
make  us  at  all  squeamish  in  helping  ourselves  to  their 
generic  appellation  at  ordinary  times.  Who  will 
ever  think  of  confounding  Smith,  in  the  abstradt,  with 
Adam  Smith,  or  Sir  Sidney  Smith,  or  the  Reverend 
Sidney  Smith,  or  James  and  Horace  Smith,  or  Dr. 
Southwood  Smith,  or  any  other  concretion  of  wit, 
bravery,  or  philosophy? 

By  this  time,  following,  as  we  talk,  our  friend  Jack 
up  the  road,  we  arrive  at  the  first  suburb  tea-gardens, 
which  he,  for  bis  part,  passes  with  disdain  :  not  our 
friend,  John  Smith,  be  it  obsei-ved,  for  his  philosophy 
is  as  universal  as  his  name ;  but  Jack  Smith,  our 
friend  of  the  new  hat  and  boots.  And  yet  he  will  be 
a  philosopher  too,  by  and  by ;  and  his  boots  shall 
help  him  to  philosophize  ;  but  all  in  good  time. 
Meanwhile,  we,  who  are  old  enough  to  consult  our 
inclination  in  preference  to  our  grandeur,  turn  into 
the  tea-gardens,  where  there  is  no  tea  going  forward, 
and  not  much  garden,  but  worlds  of  beer  and  tobacco- 
pipes  and  alcoves ;  and,  in  a  corner  behind  some 
palings,  there  is  (we  fear)  a  sound  of  skittles.  May 
no  unchristian  Christian  hear  it,  who  is  twirling  his 
thumbs,  or  listening  to  the  ring  of  his  wine-glasses ! 
How  hot  the  people  look  !  how  unpinned  the  goodly 
old  dames !  how  tired,  yet  untired,  the  children  !  and 


324 


THE    SEER. 


how  each  alcove  opens  upon  you  as  you  pass,  with  Its 
talk,  smoke,  beer,  and  bad  paint !  Then  what  a  feast 
to  their  eyes  is  the  grass-plat !  Truly,  without  well 
knowing  it,  do  they  sit  down  almost  as  much  J:o  the 
enjoyment  of  that  green  table  of  Nature's  in  the  midst 
of  them,  as  to  their  tobacco  and  "  half-and-half."  It 
is  something  which  they  do  not  see  all  the  rest  of  the 
week ;  the  first  bit  of  grass,  of  any  size,  which  they 
come  to  from  home ;  and  here  they  stop  and  are 
content.  For  our  parts,  we  wish  they  would  go  fur- 
ther, as  Smith  does,  and  get  fairly  out  in  the  fields ; 
but  they  will  do  that  as  they  become  freer  and  wiser 
and  more  comfortable,  and  learn  to  know  and  love 
what  the  wild  flowers  have  to  say  to  them.  At  pres- 
ent, how  should  they  be  able  to  hear  those  small 
angelic  voices,  when  their  ears  are  ringing  with  stock- 
ing-frames and  crying  children,  and  they  are  but  too 
happy  in  their  tired-heartedness  to  get  to  the  first  bit 
of  holiday  ground  they  can  reach  ? 

We  come  away,  and  mingle  with  the  crowds  return- 
ing home,  among  whom  we  recognize  our  friend  of 
the  twisted  cane,  and  his  lass  ;  who  looks  the  reddest, 
proudest,  and  most  assured  of  maid  -  sei'vants,  and 
sometimes  "  snubs"  him  a  little,  out  loud,  to  show  her 
power  ;  though  she  loves  every  blink  of  his  eye. 
Yonder  is  a  multitude  colledled  round  a  Methodist 
preacher,  whom  they  think  far  "  behind  his  age," 
extremely  ignorant  of  yesterday's  unstamped,  but 
"well-meaning,"  a  "poor  mistaken  fellow,  sir;"  and 
they  will  not  have  him  hustled  by  the  police.  Lord 
X.  should  hear  what  they  say.  It  might  put  an  idea 
in  his  head. 


SUNDAY    IN    THE    SUBURBS.  325 

The  gas-lights  begin  to  shine  ;  the  tide  of  the  crowd 
grows  thinner ;  chapel-windows  are  lit  up ;  maid- 
sei^vants  stand  in  door-ways ;  married  couples  carry 
their  children,  or  dispute  about  them  ;  and  children, 
not  carried,  cry  for  spite,  and  jumble  their  souls  out. 

As  for  Smith,  he  is  in  some  friend's  room,  very 
comfortable,  with  his  brandy  and  water  beside  him, 
his  colored  handkerchief  on  his  knee,  and  his  boots 
hitermitte7it.* 

*  Intermit ; "  to  grow  mild  between  the  fits  or  paroxysm."  — Johnson. 


326 


A  HUMAN  BEING  AND   A  CROWD. 


HE   reader  will    allow  us   to   relate   him    an 
apologue.     A    seer   of  visions,   walking    out 
one  evening  just  before  twilight,  saw  a  being 
standing  in  a  corner  by  the  way-side,  such  as  he  never 
remembered  to  have   seen   before.     It   said   nothing, 
and  threatened  him  no  harm :  it  seemed  occupied  with 
its  own  thoughts,  looking  in  an  earnest  manner  across 
the  fields,  where  some  children  were  playing ;  and  its 
aspedl  was  inexpressibly  affecting.     Its  eyes  were  very 
wonderful,  —  a  mixture  of  something  that  was  at  once 
substance  and  no  substance,  body  and  spirit ;    and  it 
seemed  as  if  there  would  have  been  tears  in  them,  but 
for  a  certain  dry-looking  heat,  in  which  nevertheless 
was  a  still   stranger  mixture  of  indiflerence   and  pa- 
tience, of  hope  and  despair.     Its  hands,  which  it  no\v 
and  then  lifted  to  its  head,  appeared  to  be  two  of  the 
most  wonderful   instruments   that  were    ever   beheld. 
Its  cheeks  varied  their  size  in  a  remarkable  manner, 
being    now    sunken,     now    swollen,     or     apparently 
healthy,  but  always  of  a   marvellous  formation  ;    and 
capable,    it   would    seem,    of  great    beauty,    had    the 
phenomenon    been    hajopy.     The    lips,    in    particular, 
expressed  this  capability ;  and  now  and  then  the  crea- 
ture smiled  at  some  thought  that  came  over  it ;    and 


A    HUMAN   BEING   AND    A    CROWD.  337 

then  it  looked  sorrowful,  and  then  angry,  and  then 
patient  again  ;  and,  finally,  it  leaned  against  the  tree 
near  which  it  stood,  with  a  gesture  of  great  weariness, 
and  heaved  a  sigh  which  went  to  the  very  heart  of  the 
beholder.  The  latter  stood  apart,  screened  from  its 
sight,  and  looked  towards  it  with  a  deep  feeling  of 
pity,  reverence,  and  awe.  At  length  the  creature 
moved  from  its  place,  looked  first  at  the  fields,  then  at 
the  setting  sun,  and  after  putting  its  hands  together  in 
an  attitude  of  prayer,  and  again  looking  at  the  fields 
and  the  children,  drew  down,  as  if  from  an  unseen 
resting-place,  a  huge  burthen,  of  some  kind  or  other, 
w^hich  it  received  on  its  head  and  shoulders ;  and  so 
with  a  tranquil  and  noble  gesture,  more  afte<5ling  than 
any  symptom  it  had  yet  exhibited,  went  gliding  on- 
wards toAvards  the  sunset,  at  once  bent  with  weakness, 
and  magnificent  for  very  power.  The  seer,  then, 
before  it  got  out  of  sight,  saw  it  turn  round  yearning 
towards  the  children  ;  but  what  was  his  surprise, 
when,  on  turning  its  eyes  upon  himself,  he  recognized, 
for  the  first  time,  an  exadl  countei'part  of  his  own  face  ; 
in  fadt,  himself  looking  at  himself! 

Yes,  dear  reader,  the  seer  was  the  phenomenon,  and 
the  phenomenon  is  a  human  being,  —  any  care-worn 
7na7i ;  you,  yourself,  if  you  are  such ;  or  the  Seer  of 
tlie  other  sights  in  this  book, — with  this  difference, 
liowever,  as  far  as  regards  you  and  us,  that,  inasmuch 
as  we  are  readers  and  writers  of  things  hopeful,  we 
are  more  hopeful  people,  and  possess  the  twofold  faith 
wliich  the  phenomenon  seems  to  have  thought  a 
divided  one,  and  not  to  be  united ;  tliat  is  to  say,  we 
think    hopefully   of  heaven    and    hopefully   of  earth ; 


328 


THE    SEER. 


we  behold  the  sunset  shining  towards  the  fields  and 
the  little  children,  in  all  the  beauty  of  its  double 
encouragement. 

A  human  being,  whatever  his  mistakes,  whatever 
his  cares,  is,  in  the  truest  and  most  literal  sense  of  the 
word,  a  respedlable  being  (pray  believe  it)  ;  nay,  an 
awful,  were  he  not  also  a  loving  being ;  a  mystery 
of  wonderful  frame,  hope,  and  capacity,  walking  be- 
tween heaven  and  earth.  To  look  into  his  eyes  is 
to  see  a  soul.  He  is  surely  worth  twice,  thrice,  and 
four  times  looking  at  and  considering,* — worth  think- 
ing what  we  can  do  for  him,  and  he  for  us,  and  all 
for  each  other.  Our  general  impressions  of  things 
(as  the  reader  knows)  are  cheerful,  and  ready  to 
receive  abundance  of  pleasure.  Our  greatest  sorrow, 
when  we  look  abroad,  is  to  think  that  mankind  do  not 
extra6t  a  millionth  part  of  the  pleasure  they  might 
from  the  exceeding  riches  of  Nature  ;  and  it  is 
speedily  swallowed  up  by  a  convidlion,  that  Nature 
being  so  rich,  and  inciting  them  to  find  it  out,  find  it 
out  they  will.  But,  meanwhile,  we  look  upon  the 
careful  faces  we  meet, — upon  the  human  phenomenon 
and  his  perplexities ;  and,  as  long  as  our  sorrow  lasts, 
an  indescribable  emotion  seizes  us,  of  pity  and  respedl. 

We  feel  a  tenderness  for  every  man  when  we  con- 
sider that  he  has  been  an  infant,  and  a  respe(5l  for  him 
when  we  see  that  he  has  had  cares.  And,  if  such  be 
the  natural  feelings  of  reflection  towards  individual 
faces,  how  much  more  so  towards  a  multitude  of  them, 
—  towards  an  assemblage,  —  a  serious  and  anxious 
crowd  ? 

*  Respectable;  respectaiiUs  (Latin),  worth  again  looking  at. 


A    HUMAN   BEING   AND    A   CROWD.  329 

We  believe,  that,  without  any  reference  to  poHtics 
whatsoever,  no  man  of  refledlion  or  sensibiHty  looked 
upon  the  great  and  moving  mass  and  succession  of 
human  beings,  which  assembled  a  little  while  ago  in 
London,  witliout  being  consciously  or  unconsciously 
moved  with  emotions  of  this  kind.  How  could  they 
help  it?  A  crowd  is  but  the  reduplication  of  our- 
selves,—  of  our  own  faces,  fears,  hopes,  wants,  and 
relations,  —  our  own  connedlions  of  wives  and  chil- 
dren, —  our  own  strengths,  weaknesses,  formidable 
power,  pitiable  tears.  We  may  differ  with  it,  we  may 
be  angry  with  it,  fear  it,  think  we  scorn  it ;  but  we 
must  scorn  ourselves  first,  or  have  no  feeling  and 
imagination.  All  the  hearts  beating  in  those  bosoms 
are  palpitations  of  our  own.  We  feel  them  somehow 
or  other,  and  glow,  or  turn  pale.  We  cannot  behold 
ourselves  in  that  shape  of  power  or  mighty  want,  and 
not  feel  that  we  are  men. 

We  have  only  to  fancy  ourselves  born  in  any  par- 
ticular class,  and  to  have  lived,  loved,  and  suffered  in 
it,  in  order  to  feel  for  the  mistakes  and  circumstances 
of  those  who  belong  to  it,  even  when  they  appear  to 
sympathize  least  with  ourselves :  for  that  also  is  a 
part  of  what  is  to  be  pitied  in  them.  The  less  they 
feel  for  us,  the  less  is  the  taste  of  their  own  pleasures, 
and  the  less  their  security  against  a  fall.  Who  that 
has  any  fancy  of  this  kind  can  help  feeling  for  all 
those  aristocrats^  especially  the  young  and  innocent 
among  them,  that  were  brought  to  the  scaffold  during 
the  French  Revolution?  —  who  for  all  those  democrats^ 
not  excepting  the  fiercest  that  were  brought  there 
also ;  some  of  whom  surprised  the  bystanders  with 
VOL.  I.  28 


330 


THE    SEER. 


the  tenderness  of  their  domestic  recollc6tions,  and  the 
faltering  ejaculations  they  made  towards  the  wives  and 
children  they  left  behind  them?  Who  does  not  feel 
for  the  mistaken  popish  conspirators,  the  appalling 
story  of  whose  execution  is  told  in  one  of  Disraeli's 
books,  with  that  godlike  woman  in  it,  who  is  never  to 
be  passed  over  when  it  is  mentioned  ?  Who  does  not 
feel  for  the  massacres  of  St.  Bartholomew,  of  Ireland, 
of  Sicily,  of  any  place  ;  and  the  more  because  they  are 
perpetrated  by  men  upon  their  fellow-creatures,  the 
victims  and  victim-makers  of  pitiable  mistake?  The 
world  are  finding  out  that  mistake  ;  and  not  again  in  a 
hurry,  we  trust,  will  any  thing  like  it  be  repeated 
among  civilized  people.  All  are  learning  to  make 
allowance  for  one  another ;  but  we  must  not  forget, 
among  our  lessons,  tliat  the  greatest  allowances  are  to 
be  made  for  those  who  suffer  the  most.  Also,  the 
greatest  number  of  refle(5tions  should  be  made  for 
them. 

Blessings  on  the  progress  of  refledlion  and  knowl- 
edge, which  made  that  great  meeting  we  speak  of  as 
quiet  as  it  was  !  We  have  received  many  letters  from 
friends  and  con^espondents  on  the  setting-up  of  this 
paper,  for  which  we  have  reason  to  be  grateful ;  but 
not  one  which  has  pleased  us  so  much  (nor,  we  are 
sure,  with  greater  leave  from  the  rest  to  be  so  pleased) 
than  a  communication  from  our  old  "Tatler"  friend, 
S.  W.  H.,  in  which  he  tells  us  that  he  saw  a  copy  of  it 
in  the  hands  of  "one  of  the  sturdiest"  of  the  trades' 
unions,  who  was  "reading  it  as  he  marched  along;" 
and  who  (adds  our  correspondent)  "  could  hardly  be 
thinking  of  burning  down   half  London,  even   if  the 


A    HUMAN   BEING    AND    A    CROWD.  33I 

government  did  continue  bent  upon  not  receiving  his 
petition." 

May  we  ever  be  found  in  such  hands  on  such 
occasions !  It  will  do  harm  to  nobody  in  the  long- 
run  ;  will  prevent  no  final  good ;  and  assuredly 
encourage  no  injustice,  final  or  intermediate.  "  To 
sympathize  with  all"  is  an  old  motto  on  our  flag. 
None,  therefore,  can  be  omitted  in  our  sympathy ;  and 
assuredly  not  those  who  compose  the  greatest  part  of 
all.  If  we  did  not  feel  for  them  as  we  do,  we  should 
not  feel  for  their  likenesses  in  more  prosperous 
shapes. 

We  had  thought  of  saying  something  upon  crowds 
under  other  circumstances,  such  as  crowds  at  theatres 
and  in  churches,  crowds  at  executions,  crowds  on 
holidays,  &c. ;  but  the  interest  of  the  immediate 
ground  of  our  reflecSlions  has  absorbed  us.  We  will 
close  this  article,  however,  with  one  of  the  most  appall- 
ing descriptions  of  a  crowd  under  circumstances  of 
exasperation,  that  our  memory  refers  us  to.  On 
sending  for  the  book  that  contains  it  to  the  circulating 
library  (for  though  too,  like  the  truth,  it  is  a  work  of 
fi6tion),  we  find  that  it  is  not  quite  so  well  written,  or 
simple  in  its  intensity,  as  our  recollecflion  had  fancied 
it.  Nothing  had  remained  in  our  memory  but  the 
roar  of  the  multitude,  the  violence  of  a  moment,  and 
a  shapeless  remnant  of  a  body.  But  the  passage  is 
still  very  striking.  Next  to  the  gratification  of  find- 
ing ourselves  read  by  the  many,  is  the  discovery  that 
our  paper  finds  its  way  into  certain  accomplished  and 
truly  gentlemanly  hands,  very  fit  to  grapple,  in  the 
best  and  most  kindly  manner,  with  those  many ;  and 


332  THE    SEER. 

to  these,  an  extradl,  at  this  time  of  day,  from  Monk 
Lewis's  novel,  will  have  a  private  as  well  as  public 
interest. 

The  author  is  speaking  of  an  abbess  who  has  been 
guilty  of  the  destru6lion  of  a  nun,  under  circumstances 
of  great  cruelty.  An  infuriated  multitude  destroy  her, 
under  circumstances  of  great  cruelty  on  their  own 
parts  ;  and  a  lesson,  we  conceive,  is  here  read,  both  to 
those  who  exasperate  crowds  of  people,  and  to  the 
crowds  that,  almost  before  they  are  aware  of  it^ 
reduce  a  fellow-creature  to  a  mass  of  unsightliness. 
For  though  vengeance  was  here  intended,  and  per- 
haps death  (which  is  what  we  had  not  exadlly 
supposed,  from  our  recolle6lion  of  the  passage),  yet  it 
is  not  certain  that  the  writer  wished  us  to  understand 
as  much,  however  violent  the  mob  may  have  become 
by  dint  of  finding  they  had  gone  so  far ;  and  what  we 
wish  to  intimate  is,  that  a  human  being  may  be 
seized  by  his  angry  fellow-creatures,  and  by  dint  of 
being  pulled  hither  and  thither,  and  struck  at,  even 
with  no  dirfedl  mortal  intentions  on  their  parts,  be 
reduced  in  the  course  of  a  few  frightful  moments  to  a 
condition,  which,  in  the  present  refledling  state  of  the 
community,  would  equally  fill  with  remorse  the 
parties  that  regarded  it,  on  either  side^  —  the  one 
from  not  taking  care  to  avoid  giving  oflience,  and  the 
other  from  not  considering  how  far  their  resentment 
of  it  might  lead  ;  a  mistake  from  which,  thank  Heaven, 
the  good  sense  and  precautions  of  both  parties  saved 
them  on  the  occasion  we  allude  to. 

"  St.  Ursula's  narrative,"  says  Mr.  Lewis,  speaking 
of  a  nun  who  had  taken  part  against  the  abbess,  and 


A    HUMAN   BEING   AND    A   CROWD.  333 

who  was  relating  her  cruelty  to  the  people,  "  created 
hoiTor  and  surprise  throughout ;    but,  when   she   re- 
lated the  inhuman  murder  of  Agnes,  the  indignation 
of  the  mob  was  so  audibly  testified,  that  it  was  scarcely 
possible  to  hear  the  conclusion.     This  confusion  in- 
creased with  every  moment.     At  length  a  multitude 
of  voices  exclaimed,  that  the  prioress  should  be  given 
up  to  their  fury.     To  this  Don    Ramirez    positively 
refused  to  consent.     Even  Lorenzo  bade  the  people 
remember    that    she    had    undergone    no    trial,    and 
advised  them  to  leave    her  punishment  to  the  Inqui- 
sition.    All   representations  were   fruitless :    the    dis- 
turbance grew  still  more  violent,   and  the   populace 
more  exasperated.     In  vain  did  Ramirez  attempt  to 
convey  his  prisoner  out  of  the  throng.     Wherever  he 
turned,    a   band   of   rioters   barred   his   passage,    and 
demanded   her  being   delivered   over  to   them    more 
loudly  tlian  before.     Ramirez  ordered  his  attendants  to 
cut  their  way  through  the  multitude.     Oppressed  by 
numbers,   it  was  impossible  for  them  to  draw  their 
swords.     He  threatened  the  mob  with  the  vengeance 
of  tlie  Inquisition  ;   but,  in  this  moment  of  popular 
frenzy,  even  this  dreadful   name   had   lost  its   efiedl. 
Though  regret  for  his  sister  made  him  look  upon  the 
prioress   with    abhorrence,   Lorenzo    could    not    help 
pit^'ing  a  woman   in   a   situation   so   terrible ;    but   in 
spite  of  all  his  exertions  and  those  of  the  duke,  of  Don 
Ramirez  and   the   archers,  the   people    continued    to 
press  onwards.     They  forced  a  passage  through  the 
guards  who  protected  their  destined  vi6lim,  dragged 
her  from  her  shelter,  and  proceeded  to  take  upon  her 
a  most  summary  and   cruel  vengeance.     Wild  with 


334 


THE   SEER. 


ten'or,  and  scarcely  knowing  what  she  said,  the 
wretched  woman  shrieked  for  a  moment's  mercy  :  she 
protested  tliat  she  was  ignorant  of  the  death  of  Agnes, 
and  could  clear  herself  from  suspicion  beyond  the 
power  of  doubt.  The  rioters  heeded  nothing  but  the 
gratification  of  tlieir  barbarous  vengeance.  They 
refused  to  listen  to  her :  they  showed  her  every  sort 
of  insult,  loaded  her  with  mud  and  filth,  and  called 
her  by  the  most  opprobrious  appellations.  They  tore 
her  one  from  another ;  and  each  new  tormentor  was 
more  savage  than  the  former.  They  stifled,  with 
howls  and  execrations,  her  shriJl  cries  for  mercy  ;  and 
dragged  her  through  the  streets,  spurning  her,  tram- 
pling her,  and  treating  her  with  every  species  of 
cruelty  which  hate  or  vindictive  fury  could  invent.  At 
length,  a  flint,  aimed  by  some  well-direded  hand, 
struck  her  full  upon  the  temple.  She  sank  upon  the 
ground,  bathed  in  blood ;  and,  in  a  few  minutes,  ter- 
minated her  miserable  existence.  Yet,  though  she  no 
longer  felt  their  insults,  the  rioters  still  exercised  their 
impotent  rage  upon  the  lifeless  body.  They  beat  it, 
trod  upon  it,  and  ill-used  it,  till  it  became  no  more 
than  a  mass  of  flesh,  unsightly,  shapeless,  and  dis- 
"giisting." 


END    OF    VOL.    I. 


Boston :    Priuted  by  John  Wilson  and  Son, 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  AT  LOS  ANGELES 

THE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

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